Little Lion Man
by Natalie Rushman
Summary: Odin Borson. Heir of Asgard. His story started long before he was King. And will seemingly continue long after, as it yet appears he has much to do. Centuries Pre-Thor, through The Dark World. Rated T because Odin's not exactly a White Knight and I didn't want to have to be too cautious.
1. Chapter 1

**So, about a year ago, I wrote a story called 'In the End', where I attempted to bring together all my theories/opinions leading up to 'Thor'. I left some things out. This is the first of the four (one for each member of the Asgardian royal family) sequel/prequels that I intend to publish - somewhat simultaneously. Each story is exclusively from one viewpoint, and if you choose to read them together as I release them, you'll get one cohesive story, told from all sides. If you don't, you'll get one side of it.**

 **If you're discovering this story late, I'm planning on putting up a plan for how the chapters line up chronologically.**

 **I can't promise daily updates, but you'll never have to wait too long ;) I have yet to finish them, which is a first for me. Usually I finish things before I put them up. But what can I say, I got excited.  
**

 **The title is from the song by Mumford and Sons, which I found strangely applicable, taken from many angles.**

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Bor's words rang in his ears and his face burned.

Paying little heed to the tiled floor or the wide pillars that arched to either side of him, he stormed down the long hall. Summer wind played through the openings between the pillars. It lifted the hair on his neck. But he did not notice it.

"Odin?"

She blocked his way. Gathering back his annoyance, Odin shoved all emotion out of his face and opened his hands at his sides. He did _not_ wish to speak with her. He drew to a halt and turned his face to look at the ground to his right.

Bestla looked at him with her hands folded before her. Proud and tall. Her dark eyes were stern, black hair piled on her head. The breeze knew better than to toy with it.

He hadn't seen her this nearly in many weeks.

"You and your father fought again."

He let out a slow breath.

Mockingly, she asked him, "You do not answer your queen?"

"I was unaware any reply was required of me," he turned his head to face her and straightened. "The context left me uncertain, Mother."

He clasped his hands behind him.

A slight smile touched her eyes as she drew closer. Traced an icy white finger under his chin. "What was it this time?" she whispered, almost in a hiss. "You were caught outside the palisade again, weren't you." Odin could have sworn that his face did not change, but her eyes glowed, "So," she purred. "It is that, then. How was it he caught you? I had thought you better skilled than to be caught by your father's ham-handed goons."

His teeth closed. It was an involuntary response that he cursed himself for as she latched onto it.

"No," she marveled, "No. You _went_ to him. Why? What hope have you of thwarting the old goat's schemes?"

"Why should I not?" Odin raised his chin. "I've been in his wars and he thinks to deny me passage beyond his walls? He has no right."

"He is your father," Bestla said, "your commanding officer, and your king."

"He leaves them to _starve_ in his streets," Odin snapped, "While he goes out to wage war on Realms no more advanced than _Midgard_ for no purpose but his own glory! He is no king."

"What is it you would have him do?" she frowned, "Take the food from the mouths of our servants?"

Odin said nothing, chest heaving and face washed with heat. He watched the glitter of the light playing on the rich jewels that rested about her white throat.

Her hand hovered protectively above them. "To subjugate the people is the king's right."

He raised his chin and looked into her dark eyes with all the force of his blue ones. "Then I will be no king."

Bestla looked at him for one startled moment. Then she put her head back and she laughed at him.

Odin's face flushed dark and his callused hands curled into fists that he made no effort to hide. The muscles in his arm shifted.

"Be not a fool, Son," she said. Mirth danced in her eyes. "There is no other heir."

"You have kinsmen who can take the throne. I will have none of it."

Her face darkened, "Hoenir? He is an imbecile. And Lodur is but a child."

He closed his eyes and took a long breath. "At least," he breathed, " _they_ might not bring the Realms to ruin."

"Your father," her chin went up and her eyes flashed with her jewels, "forces the Realms down to raise Asgard to its rightful place among them. Too long have they mocked us."

Odin didn't look at her. One side of his mouth tugged into a sneer he did nothing to hide. "It's rightful place among the Realms?" he said. He turned his face to see her, where she stood looking at him, pale and angry. "Where the source of its strength rots in the streets and the stench of it rises to the palisade. Where the reek is ignored by sovereigns who care for naught but for glory and for wealth. Eventually the putrefaction will spread and even your terrible beauty will not be spared, oh my queen. A palace of splendor crafted on corpses is no exaltation at all." He gave a soft laugh in his throat. "Is this the place you spoke of, Mother?"

Her hand flew and the impact of it flamed against his face. Channels scored deep into his cheek and went cold with the cut of her nails.

"You will learn not to speak thus against our power, _your_ power. _I_ am your queen and I will bear no such insult."

He caught his breath as the pain faded. He felt the blood bead in the grooves her nails had left. It slipped hot, like crimson tears, to his chin.

"Where would you be?" she flashed, "You who speak so proudly, if it were not for your father's conquests? You would be no better off than our servants. Would you have that?"

"You are my queen no longer," he said.

He watched her white hand curl at her side. For one, long moment she watched him. Then she drew back.

"I expected that towards your father. But I never anticipated..." her voice faded. She turned her head sharply away.

Blood trickled from one furrow to another on his left cheek. He did not touch it. He watched her very steadily until she turned again to look at him.

"You lost me long ago," he promised.

She looked at him. Her face was hard, her chin erect. "I see."

She turned on her heel, "Be on your way, then, Borson. Your father will seek you with all haste when he discovers your absence. Though I _know_ I trained you better than to be caught."

"I did love you, once."

She paused in her steps and turning part-way round she looked at him with one dark eye. "I had hoped for more."

And with no further word to him, she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Just a quick note for anybody who's new to my particular scheme for the 'Thor'-verse: I always envisioned Vanaheim as extremely Celtic. The Asiatic-slant they went with in 'The Dark World' is great, but I still like my idea. And if Midgard can support about a million different Cultures/sub-cultures, then I think Vanaheim will be okay if I insist on coloring its North-Western corner like pre-Medieval North-Western Europe. Or I hope so.  
**

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Vanaheim was warm and its people more peaceable than either the wars or peace negotiations had led him to believe.

But then, the Vanir had _feared_ Odin Borson. Bolverk Vegtam was no threat to them. They welcomed the wandering warrior with open arms.

And Odin had felt – these past moons – more that he had a home than he ever had, in Asgard, for all that he spent most nights beneath the stars. For the first time, he felt peace.

Wandering through the moors and dells of the maundering hills and the little vales of trees that were so much a part of the life of the Northern Vanir, Odin breathed the clean air. If Asgard was a city, then Vanaheim was a wood. And, not for the first time, he felt that he loved the wood. He would spend all his life here.

As he came through the forest, he kept to the edge of a little creek where the going was easier.

Ahead of him, he heard laughter. A gentle voice, soft. A woman.

Bending low to the concealment of the brush, he followed the sounds.

He came upon the edge of a still pool that flowed deep from a bend in the creek he'd been following, and he saw them. Their gowns were cast up on the low-hanging bow of a tree on the opposite bank, and the fabric was what caught his eye first. But not what held it.

He dropped his eyes down the little embankment to see three girls, their skin white in the filtered glow from above the leaves. One slipped beneath the surface of the water. One hummed softly to herself, her face turned from him, her long, dark hair wet and sleek on the bare skin of her back. The third stood beside her, so low in the water that only the top of her shoulders emerged, murmuring so softly that the words did not make their way to Odin's ears.

Lowering himself cautiously, his knee hit upon a dry stick and he winced.

The dark girl's head turned. Catching sight of him with one pale hand on her mouth she shrieked and dropped lower in the water. The one beside her had reached out and caught her arm, face still and panicked as a deer who'd caught the scent of its hunter on the wind.

The girl beneath the water surfaced only just in time to hear her companion's scream. She stayed low, standing in the deepest part of the pool where the water just kissed the soft rise of her collar bone. She turned her face calmly up to view their attacker. The sunlight glinted on her hair and made it flash red.

Knowing himself caught, Odin made no attempt to hide himself.

"What do you here?" she demanded. Water trickled into her face.

"I am but a lone warrior," Odin answered her. "I seek lodging for the night."

"You seek lodging in an odd place" one slender brow rose on her pale forehead and her lips tipped to one side, "Well," she said, "You will not find it here. What name go you by, Wanderer?"

She was not afraid of him. Somehow between her surfacing and his realization of that, it was as though the others behind her had never existed.

He straightened to his full height, which, on the edge of the incline where he stood, raised his face far out of her line of vision, forcing her to lean back. "Bolverk Vegtam," he told her.

Craning her head back to see him she gripped her hands on her shoulders. The lilt of her mouth suggested that she knew what he was about. As if any of this could be naught else.

He smiled down at her.

"It's not a name I've heard," she said.

"I am a stranger in this area," he admitted. "And, in truth, quite lost in these woods."

"A likely tale," she smirked. Then, "Follow this creek," she said. "A little ways, and you will find a path. Follow it. At the edge of the wood you will come to my father's Dun."

"Follow this creek," he looked back and forth along the bend of the water. "Which way?"

Her eyes narrowed, and her hands did not move from their places. "I know the game you play," she said. "You are facing the way you came, yes?"

"I might be."

For the first time her annoyance flashed clearly and overpowered any amusement. "I know not what the women are like where _you_ hail, Bolverk Vegtam. But in this _my_ Dun, we are stronger than is regularly credited and I warn you I have overpowered many a man."

"I doubt it not," his lips tugged up on one side. "No offense was meant, Lady. I merely find myself…distracted."

"Go the direction you face. You will find you've arrived well before sunset."

"By whom shall I say I was sent?"

"By none," she answered. "If any should find you've spoken with us it would most assuredly mean your death."

He inclined his head, "You are merciful, Lady."

"My clemency knows bounds, Vegtam. I have spoken with you long enough."

Bowing his head, Odin drew back, out of sight within the trees. He skirted to the edge of the pond, listening for the lap of the water and the murmuring of their voices. As he had been taught by the greatest hunters of his realm, his feet did not make a sound.

He waited until he had reached the far side of the pool. Then he went back.

"You say it is your father's Dun?"

One of the two in attendance on her screamed and the other vanished beneath the water,

The one with whom he'd spoken did not move. She'd come to a more shallow place, no doubt thinking herself safe. She stood in water that pooled about her hips with her back to him. She did not startle as her fellows had. She stood very straight in the water with her face turned from him. With one hand she gathered her long, curling hair over her shoulder.

"I did."

The other hand remained hidden by her side in the water.

His eyes traveled down the delicate curve of her spine, "Might I _see_ you, there?"

Her head turned, a smile tugging at her mouth. "You might," she said. "Now go."

Satisfied, Odin smiled.

He turned.

"And do _not_ turn back again."

 _Thunk_ in the wood a hair's breadth from his head.

An elegantly curved, _expertly_ thrown knife vibrated in the trunk of the tree immediately beside him.

Turning back he saw no sign the woman, but only ripples on the water where she'd been standing. Beyond his sight he heard the thin murmur of their voices.

The silver hilt glittered with water from the pool.

Giving a soft laugh, Odin worked the blade from the wood. Then he wrapped it in his cloak and made on, down the path toward her father's Dun.

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 **For those of you who are not myth-nerds, 'Bolverk' and 'Vegtam' are both names that Odin takes on some of his notorious wanderings.**

 **Also, this and the next few chapters are based HEAVILY on a rather obscure myth about a character called 'Billing's Daughter' and her…relationship…with a character who is assumed (from context within the poem it was originally extracted from) to be Odin.**

 **Let me know what works/doesn't work for you. Like I said, this is my first real 'work in progress', so I might be able to actually use some guidance this time ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Again, my vision of Vanaheim is hugely pre-medieval Celt-based.**

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He was accepted into Billing's Dun with the welcome he had become used to among the Vanir. They rejoiced to see newcomers to their Halls with a joy that Odin had rarely seen at home, save perhaps after a great victory.

Every dun was a tight-knit group. A chieftain who ruled as head, beside his kin and family and those without ties of blood who were nearest him. They lived each in their own home – little better than a hut – some little ways from the Great Hall of the chief. Most had cattle of their own and horses and perhaps some kind of garden. All did their share to provide for the good of the dun. A few were thralls, taken from other duns in time of war. But they were hard to tell from their free companions.

It was a foreign way to Odin.

He was welcomed with the excited yapping of the dun's hounds, with song and the good smells of cooking meat, for a scout had seen him coming along the ridge that skirted the wood and Billing would show the best of what he had to their wandering guest. A tall, young woman – certainly not Billing's wife, as would normally be the case, probably his eldest daughter, then – met Odin as he entered the Great Hall and pressed into his hands the ceremonial cup of their heady fermented mare's milk.

Some of the women and children and a great majority of the men came into the Great Hall for the feast that evening and the room was filled with talk and laughter and smoke from the long fire that ran down the center of the hall.

Though even now, all these hours later, he had yet to see the vexing creature he'd met in the pool.

Odin had drunk much of the drink the women were continually pouring into his cup and his head hummed pleasantly warm. The men surrounding him spoke easily and freely, in the Vana way, boasting their many deeds and conquests and laughed with delight to hear Odin's answers.

The care he'd taken at first to hide his true identity was largely left behind him. The Vanir loved stories, the less likely the better and they did not ask overmany questions to ascertain the truth. Their settlements, while being close among themselves, were less closely connected to one another than any in Asgard, lending itself to their fantastic stories. News was slow and winding when it came, like honey in the bite of winter.

As they contested companionably amongst themselves it came again to be Odin's turn. Thinking of his journey there, he swore that he had never been refused by any woman.

This won laughter from his companions, but Odin did not protest it. He only drained his cup once more and set it down on the table-top before him.

Then he saw her. Her red-tinted hair was bound up behind her and a golden band was about her forehead. She was across the room, beyond the fire, greeting her father, rubbing the ears of the great hunting dog that sat by his side with her slender white hand.

"Oh!" the man beside him guffawed, "So you've set yourself for _that_ one, have you? Choose another, my friend, if you'd have your boast untarnished."

"Who is she?" Odin asked, never taking his eyes from her. She moved gracefully and smiled as she spoke.

"That one is Frigga, second-daughter to the chief. She scorns the company of even the most _accomplished_ of men."

"Is she a witch?"

The man looked at him a startled moment. "You truly are a stranger here," he said. "The power of it is in her blood and she knows the ways of _seithr_ ," he shook his head, "But it is not as you ask. She works alongside the men of our dun. It's only that she refuses even the most innocent of advances. Try your charms elsewhere, Friend, or else embrace defeat."

The laughter of the others and their conversation carried on like the low sound of the tides washing to and fro on the banks of the sea. The light of the fire cast a red glow on the hall. It shivered in the haze that rose from the long fire.

A slim hand came from behind him, taking his cup. He closed his fingers lightning quick about the wrist.

"You missed," he said.

She gave a breath of a laugh, bending at the waist to fill his cup. He let her go.

"I never miss," she told him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Okay, part two of that Billing's-Daughter myth I told you about. Sorry it's so short. Assuming nothing particularly unforeseen happens, I should be beck with part three tomorrow ;)**

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It was a week later that Odin found her asleep by a fire in one of the little rooms off the Great Hall. A birthing had happened in the small hours of the morning and she had been busied in its aid.

He'd slipped easily into the life of the dun. It was as common a thing for travelers to stay days as for them to remain years. Especially those who wandered with a sword in their hand. An extra hand at the plow or on the walls was always appreciated. Another voice in the evenings spinning tales, equally so. Odin had a strong arm, a steady hand and a good voice. He did not shy from any of the three.

He'd stumbled upon her by accident. And watching her, so beautiful as she slept, he knew all in one cold moment that he'd never felt this for another woman. And, just as surely, that he never would again.

Then she woke. Sitting up quickly and pushing away her sleep, she looked him up and down. She asked him how long he had stood there.

He told her he'd only just come.

She looked at him very directly. "And bound by my beauty," she said, a touch of mockery in her voice, "you stayed. Is it not so, Bolverk? You look little elsewhere when I am about. I am not blind." She gathered her knees under her and bent forward to tend the fire. "If it is marriage you've set your mind to, I would not be wed to a wanderer. You might as well be gone."

"If _not_ marriage?" he asked her, drawing a pace nearer. "You could have killed me that day by the pool."

"And you ask this of me, too?"

She looked into the fire.

Then abruptly she turned her face to him again. "Meet me tonight," she said, a little smile about her mouth, "in the rushes by the river. My chambers are too near those of my sisters and the walls too thin. None will miss me in the night, and it would be death to you should any know of our love, so soon made known."

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 **And I know, it has nothing to do with the story, but today's 9/11 and I remember what happened that day. I was just a kid, and happened to be watching TV with my mom. I watched the Towers fall, and that was when I knew for the first time that Evil was a real thing. Not just a bad guy from one of our Fairy Tales.**

 **My heart and prayers go out to everyone who lost/is still losing someone to that tragedy and to those brave men and women still fighting to protect the rest of us.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Aaand here's part three, and last. After this, the narrative goes back to me. For a while. God help us.**

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That day Billing led a hunt and Odin rode with the rest of the men. But he did not think of it. He thought of Frigga. The bend of her neck, the gentle lines of her body, that mocking mouth. He thought of the tryst she had promised. And soon enough the ordeal of the hunt and of the evening meal would be over. Soon the veil of the dark would fall.

Slipping out, Odin went to the river and secreted himself among the rushes in the cool wind rising from the water. No one else was there, but it was early yet. Surely, she would have to bide until the dun was dark. A warrior slipping out unaccompanied was no rare thing, but the chieftain's daughter was sure to attract notice.

He settled himself to wait.

Time passed and the dun had been dark a long while. Still, there was no sign of her and Odin's waiting ran strained and impatient.

Finally, he rose and crept back. Pulling his cloak tighter about him to ward off the rising chill he threw up one hand to the guards who stood about the place. They recognized him as he came and asked no question as to where he had gone and how it was he came so late back. Odin had learned that little care was spent among the Vanir in wondering such things.

Slipping in with the shadows he crept over the sleeping forms of the dun's inhabitants that had chosen to remain in the warmth by the long fire of the Great Hall. He made his way past them, silent as death down the hall and to the door that led to Frigga's own chamber. Perhaps in her wait she had dozed off, and a touch of his hand would rouse her.

Sure enough, in the dark of the room he saw a shape beneath the blanket on the bed. He ran a hand down the rise in the blanket from shoulder to hip, and the form shifted.

In the dark, Odin smiled.

A thick whine rose from the bed.

Odin's smile faded. He threw back the blanket to reveal the bound body of a dog. A bitch-hound from Billing's stock for breeding and his face flushed hot with anger.

Without a sound, he cast the blanket onto the floor, flung about, and left.

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 **May I quote Thor directly: "You" (– Loki –) "have her tricks…"**


	6. Chapter 6

**I change narrative style a little bit here. Let me know what you think of it.**

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Odin would have left Billing's Dun at dawn the next morning, shamed and angry, had refugees from the neighboring dun – that of Billing's brother – not woken them before the sun had rightly begun its rising.

Riders, they gasped. Riders from the North. Dark as Death with swords of flame who razed the thatch of their dun above their heads in smoke. No sign was left behind them. They vanished as a morning mist.

What did they want, Billing raged. What had they taken.

They took nothing but lives. Left nothing but ash.

What had caused this.

He didn't know. He didn't know. Nothing had caused it. They were unprepared.

Odin stepped in. These attacks, he had heard of such attacks in his travels.

Billing looked on him with a newfound interest. He waved for the distraught refugees to be led by his daughters, Saga, Frigga and Gefjun, to the recesses of the Hall, to have their wounds cared for and to be comforted.

The eldest and youngest obeyed. Frigga remained, to Odin's disgust, her face taught, eyes alight. Her hands were tight on the back of a chair behind which she stood.

Billing wanted to know of these creatures.

Castlings, Odin promised.

Frigga watched him, rapt and anxious.

Odin did not look again at her.

Creatures of fire and ash, he said. All but indestructible. Cast by a dragon out of the Nidaveil. He'd seen their like among the forests of the Nidavellir.

Billing scoffed. The Nidavell and Vanir were rivals time-out-of-mind.

Odin told how he had been wandering among the few towns that pocked the surface of that subterranean realm and how the dragon Vrending had roused herself and working her strange magic – magic chosen to devour the land piece by piece through the flame and ash of her castlings.

The first thing to be done, he said, was to protect the dun with water. If they had any stormbringer, such a one should be summoned.

Billing looked to his daughter.

She shook her head. She told her father she had but little skill commanding the storm, and she knew of none other who did.

Then, Odin told them, they would have to be ready. Armed with water to douse the flames as the attackers rode through. To salvage what they could of the buildings.

"What then?" Frigga asked. "Surely the dragon will only be angered and will come back."

Billing looked to him.

"The dragon must be slain," Odin said, "either that, or persuaded to go back to sleep."

Frigga scoffed that such a thing as persuading a dragon could be thought of.

"They speak," Odin told her loftily. "Should they not also think?"

Frigga folded her arms, "You know little of men," she answered.

Billing spread his hands. "We have little ability, Bolverk, to do this thing you ask. We have no blade of the strength necessary to slay the manner of beast you describe. Unless you have ability you have yet to reveal to us?"

"I do not."

"Father," Frigga came nearer him. Stopped beside his chair with her hands on the arm of it.

The old chieftain closed his eyes. Certain of what it was he would be hearing.

Odin knew what it was she would ask. It was preposterous, and he smirked, soothed that at least she should not have that which she desired.

"I have much skill in the craft of my mother. There is nothing else the wise-women here may teach me, and none of your men-at-arms either. I would face this beast. I have slain my share on the hunts –"

"This is not a wyrm as those who prey on cattle, Daughter."

"This I know." Frigga said. "But you yourself _just_ _said_ that we possess no weapon to end this threat. Perhaps magic might serve where a blade does not."

"And if not?"

"Bolverk believes the dragon can be reasoned with. One way or another, Father –"

"And if not, Frigga?"

She drew herself up. "Then I die to save my people. You have two daughters more. Saga already will lead your line, and Gefjon is a good daughter. Both," she touched his arm, "less strain on you than I."

The old chieftain eyed her fondly, "Neither more dear," he said.

Giving a slight smile she inclined her head.

"And neither," the old chieftain straightened, "more stubborn. You will follow this path with my leave or no, will you not, Daughter?"

"Yes, Father."

Giving a soft chuckle, Billing rested one hand on his daughter's cheek. He turned to where Odin stood across the room. "An honest daughter is a thing to be prized above gold. Remember that in your future days, Bolverk."

Odin breathed a scornful laugh. He looked away, impatient and uncomfortable with this exchange. He had not, however, been dismissed by the chieftain. Some regulations were kept, even among the Vanir, and he knew to leave without dismissal was unwise.

Billing put one hand behind his daughter's neck and rested his forehead to hers. "My strength and my blessing go with you, Girl," he said softly. "Norn speed and blessing on your quest. My blessing return to me if you do not bow to my one condition."

"Father?"

"Bolverk will accompany you."

She leapt back as though he'd struck her, "Father! You can't –"

Odin was as little pleased as she. But he could see how little this man was to be placated. He shut his teeth.

"He alone knows what manner of thing this is," Billing explained quietly. "And in the days he has dwelt with us he has showed himself a hunter skilled both in tracking and in slaying the kill. These are traits that will be invaluable to your quest. And it was he who brought up the notion of reasoning with the beast, once it is found. I will not be swayed. Either he goes with you or you remain under my personal guard until some other had dispatched the creature."

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	7. Chapter 7

The dark had fallen cold and thick about them like a shroud. The moon was hidden. Odin did not allow it to slow his pace and Frigga, to her credit, did not complain. Grudgingly, he respected her the more for it.

Neither had spoken during all of the day's march, each resentful of the other's presence. Odin thought her a fool, persisting in her belief that she might be able to slay such a beast. She! A woman. There were ways about such thing and dragon's blood could strengthen many an article, but without a weapon to pierce the hide and free the blood he was at some loss. Surely some plan would occur to him as he went. Some _thing_ leap at him in the dragon's hoard that might light his imagination. Surely, if he could contrive to trick the dragon into a vulnerable shape…

But with a magic-wise girl on his heel, he was crippled. Not only now must he find some way of killing the beast, he must protect the chieftain's daughter.

They'd been going uphill for hours and the climb was becoming rocky and more steep as they went through the belly of the night. A stone jerked loose under his foot and he fell to one knee, casting his arm back only just too late to warn his companion.

She gave a little cry.

Odin came back the few steps to where she was. She'd turned and sat down on the pebbled ground. He couldn't make out more than her vague outline, and the fact that she remained more-or-less upright on the stones. He cupped his hands to summon a light.

"Look," she whispered.

Forgetting the little were-light just beyond his reach he followed the wavering line of her pointing finger that he could only just make out in the dark.

Deep below them in the valley-land of her father's dun, tendrils of fire were springing to light in the blackness.

"It must be near," Odin said. "No more than three days' march – at most. Are you hurt?"

A motion in the darkness made him think she denied it.

"Let me see."

"They burn my father's dun," she murmured.

Odin drew out the were-light. It glowed in the palm of his hand. "It is better protected than most, with the river beside it."

As it was, only her ankle had been bruised. She must have heard the stones falling and leapt out of their way as they fell.

She said no more and as he glanced back up he found her looking at him coldly with tear-tracks wavering on her cheeks, luminous in the light from his hand. "Do they matter so little to you?" she whispered. "That you care-not to watch them die?"

"The fact that they are there," he said, indicating the fire-red streaks, "and so early in the evening, would tell me that the dragon is near. Nearer than it was last night. We would do best to keep on. She is on the move."

He turned and strode a few steps higher on the slope.

"She?" Frigga's voice floated behind him. She hadn't moved from her place.

Odin stopped and stood, turning back to look after her. "Only a woman would be so passive in attack."

Frigga gave a low, scornful laugh. But she did not otherwise answer. She'd drawn her knees up and looked out and down the long slope to the thin, molten veins that cut across the pressing dark.

"And besides," Odin winked out the light, "No drake alive has ever been proven to know the way of castlings. It is a feminine art. We should keep on."

"And lack our strength for the challenge ahead? _That_ seems wise."

Heat flared in Odin's breast, "Here?" he demanded, gesturing to the rock-covered slope, though he knew she could not see him.

"Do _you_ know a better place we could reach before morning?"

"You would sleep, watching your father's dun burn?"

She did not answer.

Odin stepped farther down the slope toward her, "You accuse _me_ of callousness?" he snapped, "At the least _I_ would press on."

The rocks shifted as she turned on him. "I never said that I would sleep."

Odin took a long breath. She had not risen, only shifted. She would not move, he was certain, for some time. "Then," he decided, "you keep watch."

And pulling his cloak tighter about him he lay down a ways away among the rocks.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **Lol. They're fun.**

 **Just as a side note, I know I warned you not to expect daily updates, but I'm gonna be out of town until Sunday night, and I'm not sure about internet. Promise I'll get back to you by Monday if not before!**


	8. Chapter 8

**So, turns out we have free Wi-Fi. Booyah.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

The sky was cold and grey as they made on. Nearly white as the stone under their feet and towering up on either hand. The color gave the place an unearthly glow.

They'd come to a crevice in the white rock just big enough for them to fit, walking above the tiny trickle of icy water that had worn its way through the soft rock. Ash smeared grey and black on the white stone. Frigga did not ask if he knew where they went, but looking at the darkness against the stone, she set her mouth grimly and she followed him.

He did not know the name of this place. Possibly, it was so far from habitable lands that it had no name at all.

After some hours, they came to the opposite side of the passage. Little scrubby bushes grew, a dark, mossy green, amid the shattered white stone, breaking the bleakness of the landscape. Beyond and farther North, there rose the hills. To the East was forestland. They had seen sign of no animal in the waste of white stone. The only birds were high and far away, reeling above the slit of white sky above the cliffs. They had brought some provision from the dun, but, neither of them knowing how long this venture might last, they determined to break for camp. Odin went into the skirting edge of the forest, only just deep enough to find game. And when he'd come back Frigga had made a fire.

They spoke as little as they might.

Then it was over and she banked the fire and they made on. Farther North.

Where the path that wound from the white stones into the hills turned black and the stubbornly-rooted shrubs were bare, sharp sticks, they stopped.

"It makes no secret of its place," Frigga murmured.

"She has no need." Odin answered.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **Short chapter today, I know. But I will MORE THAN make up for it.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Before we start, a large part of this chapter is based on a myth, which I will explain better at the end. Suffice it to say now, the parts of the discussion that confuse you are a game. A game that *I* do not know the rules to, and a game that I did not make up. I'm only repeating it here. On impulse. Because MY impulses are such good ideas.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

It was two days later that they came to the place. A cave in the cold, black stone. Thin smoke rose from the opening.

Frigga caught her breath and drew a little ahead of him.

Odin caught her wrist.

Wordlessly, she turned on him, pinning him with fierce, blue eyes.

"You will follow," he whispered.

Her eyes narrowed and she wrenched her wrist away. "My father –"

"You father," he hissed, "sent _me_ to keep you alive. Have you so much as _seen_ the like of this creature before? If you would do well by your dun you _will_ follow me."

Sullenly, she drew back.

Odin went cautiously forward to the dark mouth of the cavern. Inside, he saw nothing but blackness. Blackness that beat with a heated pulse, deep in the back of it. Breathe hissed, low and far away and deep like the breathing of the land itself, barely discernable. He pressed a little, just to feel the depth of it.

Frigga's hand closed on his upper arm and he jerked. He'd forgotten that she was there. Her eyes were large in her face, frightened and starring into the living, pulsing dark.

Odin turned back to face it.

This. It was a place of strong enchantments. Strong magic. Foreign magic.

He pressed into it, tasting it with his soul. Reaching for it the way he might reach for a were-light to cup into his palm. It was a fierce thing, powerful.

And he longed for it, suddenly, with all the strength he possessed. He wanted it a part of him. Wanted it. Wanted it harnessed to his control. He would pay any price.

The breathing quickened and just beyond his touch he felt a spark – almost a consciousness but _nothing_ like any that he'd felt before. So utterly foreign and immense as it woke and reared its head that it was all he could do to refrain from dropping to his knees on the cavern floor.

Something like laughter rippled through it. Deep in the throat and heavy with scorn.

The sound must have been audible, for Frigga's fingers tightened until her nails bit into his arm and that brought him back. The smell of the air. The firmness of the stone under his feet. The roughness of his own clothing against his skin. The sound of his breathing and of Frigga's. He couldn't lose contact with what was. If he did, all was lost.

Laughter again and Odin shuddered.

"Well met," the voice was low and dark and Odin opened his eyes to see that the cavern had become filled with light. It was shaped as the entryway to a Great Hall, very like the one Odin knew from his home. All crafted of gold with a wide, open space of floor. A staircase curled from an opening in a higher section of the cavern's wall, and a woman stood upon it. She was beautiful, with lush, black hair that hung loose down her back and a gown the color of old blood drawn about her. It was she who had spoken.

She smiled at him and her teeth were those of a predator.

He knew with a cold sort of certainty that should he draw near her, she would be his death. And yet that did nothing to quell his longing for her. He could not begrudge her that.

Her head tipped to one side, "It has been long since I have smelled one of your kind," she said. Her hair swung like a thick veil. "By what do they call you?"

"I am Bolverk," he said. He shook his head. Names had power. He ought to have known better. Even though it was not his _true_ name, he ought to have refused.

But, a quiet voice sounded in the back of his mind, _just_ out of the reach of the pulsing, reminding him that vulnerability, breeds its like.

He pressed farther, standing erect before her. "By what name do you allow yourself to be known?"

And she laughed, gently, in her throat, as she leaned into her elbow on the railing of the stair where she stood, "I am Vafthrudnir," she told him.

Distantly, Odin noticed that there were objects scattered about the room. Mounded coins and gems and rusted blades. Then, as he watched, a mound of rich fabric embroidered in gold faded to cleaned bones before the fabric again solidified in their place.

So, he thought, the enchantment runs thin.

"What is it that draws you here, Bolverk?" she asked. Her voice was deep and throaty. Not the voice of a woman, nor that of a man, either. But it was hard to remember that, when she spoke. She traced one finger on the rail, "My halls are not easy to reach."

"They are your halls?"

She laughed again, flashing her sharp teeth, "Of course."

"I have heard much of the wisdom of the one who had come here." The ground swayed delicately under his feet and he closed one fist to feel his nails bite his palm. Thought of the discomfort, as he spoke. "And the beauty. I came to see for myself if there was any truth to them."

She drew languidly back from the barrier, "What would so little a one as you know of _Truth_ ," she purred. Her eyes flashed, "Well," she smiled with her mouth, "Are your curiosities satisfied?"

"The tales fall, utterly, short."

She smiled the smile one gives a coy child. "You lie, Bolverk," she smiled, "It was not curiosity after tales that woke me," her lips spread, baring her teeth as she laughed, "You hunger for me. For my" she hissed, "…power.

"So," she clapped her hands abruptly against the railing. Black claws retracted on her woman's hands, like those of a large cat. "I propose a game. You know the way," she said, "you know the rules, I feel its knowledge in you. You know that if you win you may ask of me a boon, and that if I win," the smile spread, "your life is mine. But first," she frowned, and her eyes narrowed. "What _do_ you know? Do you know the name of that stallion that draws the Day?"

Heat swirled in the space of the hall.

A game of knowledge, he thought.

"The name of that stallion is Skinfaxi."

Her claws clicked against the railing. "And what the name of that who draws the Night?"

Odin breathed deeply. The heat and the ponding made his head spin. "His brother, Hrimfaxi," he said, "draws the three-faced Night."

Her eyes narrowed, "And what is the name of that river that runs betwixt the giants and the gods?"

"Iving is its name," Odin straightened and the spinning subsided.

"And what," she smiled, "is the name of the field, a hundred miles square, where the last battle will be fought?"

"That field is Vigrid."

The woman was watching him, and behind her a curtain shifted in the rising heat.

Odin took a long breath that rasped in his throat. "And there will the Fire Giants vanquish the gods and the branches of Yggdrasil go up in flames."

Vafthrudnir stood a moment, watching him. Then she came down the stair. She gestured with a fluid motion of her wrist to a table that Odin had not noticed there before. It stood laden with food and candles that flickered in the wind of her passing and two chairs stood at it. One facing the far wall, the other facing the door.

"Sit," she purred, "eat. And we will talk."

She went past him, very close, and Odin shuddered. She took the chair facing him.

Which left one seat remaining. The wrongness of that cut through the haze all of a sudden and, recalling his companion, he glanced toward Frigga.

Seeing her was like a cold draft, pushing knife-like through the smothering heat.

Frigga's mouth was a thin line. She said nothing but pushed him to move forward. She herself, stepped back, carefully, to go around to the other side of the hall.

Odin could not fathom what it was she might be doing.

The woman's head tipped to one side. "What do you look at?"

She turned, but when she looked back to him she hadn't an answer and Odin realized through the heat and the haze that Frigga was hidden from her sight. Best to keep it so.

She shook her head and raised one hand to cut him off as he began to answer.

He came forward and took the empty seat across from the woman.

She sat back, "Begin, oh _Wise One_ ," she purred. Her nails clicked on the tabletop.

Odin watched her very levelly. He could no longer see Frigga behind her and he did not push to. He did not want to expose her to the woman's scrutiny.

Then he took a long breath.

And the game began.

"Say first, Vafthrudnir, for they say you are wise and you know, whence comes the earth below?"

She tipped her head and smiled very slowly, "An odd choice," she said, "To begin with that place. But," she waved one hand, "as you say. From the body of Ymir, father of the giants."

"And say," he leaned forward on his arm, blinking clear his eyes, "Vafthrudnir, for the people extol your wisdom, whence came the moon and the sun?"

She sat straighter, "They are the spawn of Mundilfari. He bore them and raised them and set them in the sky for the reckoning of time, the turning of the day and the night."

"Say, Vafthrudnir, for all tell of your knowledge, whence comes the day and night for them to turn?"

"Their sire, Delling," she purred, "Their dam, Nor."

He breathed deeply but the scent of the food only blurred his vision further and her face became that of a woman, beautiful beyond telling. "And say whence, Vafthrudnir," he pressed, "for thou art wise, come the Summer and the Winter that they travel between?"

She leaned forward with her elbows on the tabletop. She smiled, "From the loins of Vindisval, Winter's Cold, was Winter come, and from those of Svasud Summer sprang."

"Tell me," Odin held her eyes. She was pushing her enchantments, he could feel their workings about the room pull tight. He put his hand flat on the tabletop. Felt its firmness. "Vafthrudnir, if thou knowest more than I, from whence come the gods? And whence the giants?"

"Their sire is one," she said, "Bergelmir, son of Thrudgelmir whose own sire was Aurgelmir First-Made."

"Whence came Aurgelmir, Vafthrudnir? If thou truly art wise as the people claim." His chest ached for breath, without any obstruction he could find.

Her eyes flashed, and her hand caressed his on the tabletop before her. Her nails were jagged and black. "From the drops of poison out of the Elivagar that shoots up from the depths of the deepest Niflhel," she murmured.

"And how, being alone," he met her eyes and they held him, "did he beget children, Vafthrudnir? If thou dost know."

Giving a soft laugh, her dark mouth tipped upward at one side. "A man came from under his arm," she said, "and a woman from the other. One foot beget a six-headed giant on the second," she motioned fluidly with her hands, "and thus the children of Aurgelmir."

He looked at her a long time, until it seemed as though she thrashed with impatience. He felt the rise of her powers like the swell of an angry sea and he was sick with longing. But he would allow her no hold on him. He had the strength. "You are old, Vafthrudnir," he said, then. "What is the first thing that you remember?"

She tipped her head, "That is not the way of the game," she said, but she smiled and he felt a quick, coldness in the stuff of the air. "But as you ask I will oblige. I recall Bergelmir, climbing aboard a craft to save himself from the flood of his grandfather's bleeding. That was in Jotunheim and it was long ago, if you know the tales."

Odin sat back. The cold gave him further power and he drew away from her. "Much have I travelled, much tried, much tested the Powers. If _you_ have heard tales, tell me of the sun to rise after the end of all things."

She watched him curiously as she spoke, "After the end the sun's daughter, Alfrodel, Elf-Beam will rise up from the bloodied sea."

"And tell me," Odin said, pushing forward again, flinging out the old pieces of the game, rising above the swells of her magic, "who are the maidens who will wing over that sea?"

"The daughters of Asgard and Jotunheim both, united in one blood. Three times three maidens will fly over Mothrasir's Hill."

"And tell me, Vafthrudnir," a new configuration. He was bold with his victory, "who are the ones who teach the way of runes to those who would know?"

She began to laugh, then, and the air shuddered.

Her power reared its full head and Odin felt he was falling, knew that that last had been a gamble too far and she would have the game. He knew that she would be his death.

And he wanted it with the strength of all he was.

She was beautiful. She was worthy of his life. She was fierce and powerful. She would kill him. She ought to. Supremacy should be hers.

He would go to her. If he had the Realms in his hands, he would give them all to her.

He…

He would go to her.

Then the cavern erupted in a scream that sounded like worlds being rent apart. The cavern was crumbling and the earth roared up underneath him.

The world turned in on itself.

When he opened his eyes, the Hall was gone, though the cavern yet was standing. The dark had run all out of it and the center was bathed in the thin light of the sun. He felt it going, sucking, clawing, dragging out into the day.

He'd forgotten, almost, that there was a world beyond.

He felt raw and aching through every part of him. Dizzy and stammering after what had been. His eyes flashed in fractured lights that stabbed deep into his head and the floor of the cavern rocked. Acid licked the back of his throat.

About the cavern lay the dragon's hoard, as he had seen though the glamor, clean bones, rusted weapons, tarnished gems.

He thought he might be sick.

And immediately before him, on the ground, with the light all gone out of its eyes, lay a dragon, the color of old blood. Frigga stood panting behind the back of its great neck, her legs straddling its throat, her arm slick in its steaming blood, her knife barely visible in the mess of it as it bubbled out of the creature's neck.

His heart lurched in his chest, keening within him that such a beautiful thing should be ended.

"You," he panted, "You killed her?"

"She would have killed us and ended the life of the Valley." Frigga's eyes blazed, though her voice was cold. "I did what you would not."

Odin let his head hang down. He stared at the ground between his hands. He knew it was true. There was no use arguing it. He'd been so wooed by the monster's enchantments that he would have died, had it not been for Frigga's action.

"She had great beauty," Odin said.

He heard Frigga's movements check as she stopped to stare at him. He did not look up.

"And power," he said, "We could have learned much from her."

"Are you telling me," she asked softly, "I did _wrong_?"

Odin pressed himself to his knees, "The rules of the game are clear," he said. "She was the victor. I owed her my life. And you killed her. You make me oath-breaker."

"You would die for honor to a _beast_?"

"Are we more than beasts without it?"

She drew back a little and her chin went up. "Yes," she said. "We are." She turned about in the doorway, "The honor that binds you is idiocy."

Odin shook his head, laughing a little in his throat.

"You mock?" she flashed, whirling back on him, slick blood dripping off of her arm and onto the cavern floor, "But for me we would both be dead and my father's dun ash. I will _not_ regret that action."

Odin picked himself slowly up from the floor of the cavern. The scent of blood was thick on the air and his head spun. His hands shook, and he knew, if left to himself, he would have failed. He ought to thank her, but the death of so powerful a thing had caught on some part of his soul and threatened to drag him down with it. All of it mingled in his throat and made it hard to breathe.

Frigga did not speak to him again. Her eyes flashed and her mouth was grim as she strode out of the cavern and into the sunlight that Odin felt would pierce his eyes to blindness.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"To wash."

"The blood," his voice was quiet.

She turned and looked at him, very blank.

"The blood is heavy with power," he murmured, almost more to himself, "The knowledge of the future, of the speech of the animal-kind, of magic…"

Her face, as he raised his eyes, was a map of disgust. "Would you drink it, Vegtam?" she asked, "Or bathe? I have magic in my blood also," she gestured hotly at the blood-spattered underside of her bare wrist, "Would you have that for your _power_?"

Weary beyond telling, he did not fight. "Would you not _know_?"

"I would _not_ ," she spat. "Your lust for it was nearly the death of us all. I would have no part in it if it was all between us and Ragnarok itself."

She vanished around a bend in the rock and left him in the mouth of the cavern.

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 **The myth I based this on is a contest of wills/wisdom between Odin on one of his many wanderings (I believe it's actually the one in which he goes by the name Vegtam, actually, but I may be wrong) and a giant (not a dragon) named Vafthrudnir (and, also, Vafthrudnir was male. But I liked this better). The story goes through these series of questions which I reorganized (in a few places) and paraphrased. Odin wins, and so Vafthrudnir lets Odin kill him and Odin…I guess…inherits his magic. Giants and Vanir had magic in the mythology. Any god who had it had it by theft or this kind of…game. It makes little to no sense to me, but as I was writing the myth just came into my head and I thought it was too fun to pass up. I feel like it gave a cool sense of the** _ **difference**_ **of their culture from ours.**

 **Oh, and sinse I'm writing a long-ass note anyway, I should have noted earlier that Nidavelir is one of the realms, and it's the one where the dwarves live (though there is dispute among myth-nerds about that, and idk what Marvel thinks). In my head, the Vanir are a little like wood elves from** _ **The Lord of the Rings**_ **, and, thus, have a rivalry with the dwarves. And because dwarves and dragons go together… (that's how I explain the dwarves living underground. That the dragons made it unsafe to do otherwise). The Nidavel is a place in mythology that was supposed to either be a valley land in Nidavelir, or one adjacent to Hel, in Niflheim. Either way, I thought that was cool.**

 **And the idea that a "mythic being's" blood/body parts could impart knowledge/super-human skills is common to MOST mythologies. And Thor has confirmed that it's part of the movie canon too in his shorts with Daryl. Look them up on YouTube if you haven't seen them. They're priceless.**


	10. Chapter 10

She was gone longer than he'd expected. By the time she returned he'd done all the needful things.

A beast such as this was imbued with power, even in death. There were precautions to be taken. He slit the eyes that if it returned it might be blind, and, removing the heart, he burned it. There was power to be gained in the consumption of the organs, but he could not bear to give in to his longing for that power under the heat of Frigga's scorn. And besides that, he had failed. To avail himself of the dragon's power when they were thus stolen would be yet a new violation of all sacred ordinance.

And, unlike her, he knew the power of a word given. He'd vowed his life to the dragon. And yet it was he, doing the needful things to the monster's corpse.

One day, there would come a time when he would pay for the debt.

In his heart, he mourned for the beast. For her beauty and strength, and the power of her, gone out into the Void. But at the same time he crawled with the knowledge that he had been bested, and if it had not been for Frigga…and he'd wanted it. Wanted his own death. He'd failed. And it had been so long since the Son of Bor had tasted defeat…it soured on his tongue.

Frigga was flushed and dripping fresh water from her clothing and her arms as she came back. She found him sitting at the mouth of the cavern with all the needful things done.

They traveled the days back to her father's dun in a silence that was utterly different from that with which they had hunted. Frigga went before, sure of the path. She was flushed with the victory and strained to see what would be left of her people. Odin hung back, weary and aching with a thousand things he could not name.

They made good time and on the third day they came out of the forest and rounded the bend in the hills and they saw what remained of Billing's Dun.

They had done well for themselves, when all considerations were made. Many – most – of the outlying buildings had gone, but the Great Hall had suffered little, and the crops were – in the main – untouched. Of people and animals an impressive few were lost.

Frigga was caught up by her family, her sisters and her father and her people who loved her, crushed against them and greeted and plead with for her story and she was laughing and crying and holding a small child that had been thrust upon her, petting the head of her father's huge hunting dogs. She looked out at the wreckage and Odin saw in her eyes how she grieved for the lost, but there was none of that in her bearing. Her head was high and her shoulders straight.

She was the savior of her people.

And Odin. Through the pride of his own heart, he had nearly killed them.

He saw the burnt black beams of the ruined buildings piercing up from the ground like ribs extending from a corpse. He saw the fresh-turned earth above the hastily-dug graves and it didn't matter to him that there were few. What mattered to him was that – left to himself – none would have remained. As Frigga had said, life in the Valley would have been wiped out.

Tears washed painfully into his eyes and he turned his head away.

If he noticed the way Frigga glanced back at him, the quick flash of realization and the softening behind her blue eyes, he felt he no longer deserved it. And he did not let it dwell in his mind.


	11. Chapter 11

Bolverk Vegtam did not bide long at Billing's Dun after the dragon that had advanced upon them was slain. Once the rebuilding had been completed, he took up his weapons and, bidding farewell to the Chieftain, he went on his way.

Odin travelled far. He wanted the power he had touched in the dragon's lair. The power that had allowed Frigga to hide herself from it. The power that touched his own mother's blood and had no flush of warmth in his own.

There were other ways to get that power. Other means.

He would not be bested again.

Three years later, it was a different man who returned, through the crashing of a wild storm, to Billing's Dun. He was soft-spoken and apologetic. He had not intended to stop, but the sky was dark and the gale fierce.

"Bolverk?" the old Chieftain sat straighter in the High Seat, "Bolverk Vegtam?"

The bedraggled traveler gave half a smile, "I've travelled long."

Billing laughed and he demanded that Bolverk remain a fortnight at least. Billing's heir was his daughter, Saga, and she had born her first son only the night before. The line was secured and the celebrations were only just beginning.

Graciously, Odin allowed that – having no greater quest upon him – he might stay a while.

He took a place amid the warriors around the long fires as he had sat among them three years before, and he took the drink a young girl – in the first flush of her new womanhood – offered to him. She blushed as he smiled at her. The talking and the laughter rang to and fro along the walls and mingled with the smoke and the thrusting, hairy noses of the hunting dogs. And Odin listened to it all. New scars were on his hands and arms and he spoke little.

A slender hand came across his shoulder to refill his glass.

"We missed you,"

Odin gave a dry laugh. "You told me once," he traced one finger on the rim of the goblet as she returned it to him, "that you never miss."

She did not answer, but when Odin lowered the goblet from his lips, in the flickering firelight, he saw that Frigga had smiled.


	12. Chapter 12

**Again, just so we're clear, I'm painting this society as a very pre/early-medieval Celtic society. Most of my 'research' on this chapter, came from historical fiction I read in my teens by Rosemary Sutcliff. If anybody's interested.**

 **Also, when I say 'less time' translate YEARS. Not decades…I think, but YEARS, at least.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

It took less time than one might have thought for Bolverk Vegtam, wandering warrior, lore master and mage, to win the heart of Frigga Billingsdottir, and scarce time after that, her hand.

Frigga herself crafted the Bridescake. Saga, her elder sister, served in the place of their mother and helped her dress. The spears were polished and bedecked with feathers from the birds that stood one-legged among the reeds by the river. The feast was had, and the cake, then Billing took each by one hand and led them from their places at opposite ends of the fire to the center. The Cup was passed from one to the other, the fire winking in its bound rim, flashing in Frigga's blue eyes. Two young men of Odin's nearer acquaintance rose silently from the back and made for a side door. Odin pretended that he had not noticed it. The ribbon was bound once, twice, three times about their joined wrists, flamingly scarlet against the cream of Frigga's skin. The horses were made ready. Frigga's brother-by-marriage stood in the place of a brother behind her with his spear ready. Gefjon, her maiden sister served as her handmaid. Outside, the horses were led by the two young men to a place appointed. The vows were spoken on the Ring and the Hearth.

A crash as the door swung open. A shout was raised as Odin caught Frigga about the wrist and dragged her forward, to the beckoning, laughing faces of the young men at the door. He hauled her behind him and she stumbled on her foot, catching at her mantle, out into the light of the setting sun and he thrust her up onto the back of his horse. Then he swung up behind her. He drove his heels into the horse's flank and the stallion reared back before shooting out from the shelter of the dun and across the heath. Clutching his arm, Frigga gave a breathless laugh.

To his left one of the young men shouted. He pointed and Odin followed his laughing directive.

Behind them, the men, headed by Frigga's brother-by-marriage, had flown to horse and followed in pursuit. Most had broken with tradition – as was more commonly the way now – and they'd saddled their mounts in anticipation of the 'raid'. In the old days, no such thing would have been allowed.

Odin drove the white stallion out across the rolling hills to the place appointed by the two who directed him. There, hidden in a stand of trees, was an enclosed shelter built. And within sight but distant from it a second feast was spread and a bonfire awaiting its lighting.

As they alighted from their breathless steeds, the sun slipped below the horizon. One of the young men, grinning cheekily, took the bridle of his horse. The other had stopped by the mound of dry timbers to meet their pursuit that was just cresting the last ridge now. Their leader held aloft the bride's torch.

It was his duty to make sure the bride was well cared for in that night – in promise of protection for her future – by keeping watch with the other men of their dun by the great fire and to escort the bride and her husband home for the feast the next morning.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

The sun rose pale and pointed and Odin opened the door to the cheers of those just waking and those who had not slept where they were by the dying fire. He showed Frigga's hand, clasped within his as high as the length of her arm wound reach above his head.

Flushing, she laughed, "Bolverk,"

There was much she did not know. But that was as it should be. The dead need not be raised.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **Oh, and on a semi-related note. – SHAMELESS plug. – I've been working this week on the 'Loki' installment of this exercise. I'm gonna risk the accusations of hubris and say that *I* think it's a new take. I think you guys are gonna like it. I can't wait.**


	13. Chapter 13

Odin remained within Vanaheim accompanied by his young wife.

But without, in the others of the Nine, events continued. News of them came slowly.

The Svartalfs were destroyed by the armies of the AllFather. Their treasure buried deep, where it might never be found.

Asgard was impressive in its military strength, the news-bringer would say, but its lord spared little love for ought else. Its queen was commonly left behind him as regent. She was as proud as she was cruel, and the people feared her.

Odin would laugh softly in his throat and ask news of other fronts, other realms.

Sometimes he would leave for long periods of time. He would travel. And he would learn.

By whatever means needed, he would grow stronger.

Then he would return to his little home in Billing's Dun, return to his wife. She wondered where it was he went, and occasionally she asked. But his journeyings were not a thing of which he wished to speak, and Frigga did not press him to know. He returned to their life in Vanaheim and he hunted with the men of the dun. He talked with them and laughed with them and helped in their planting and their harvesting.

He loved his young wife, and she him. Often they would ride together and they spoke of many things. She showed him the places she loved. Foremost among them the cliffs along the edges of the sea. They reminded Odin of his home. He did not tell her so.

A year or two after their own wedding, he helped his brother-by-marriage escort Gefjon, Frigga's sister, from the fire to the feast on the arm of a hunter from a neighboring dun. Frigga stayed with the women to ready the morning feast. And some moons after, he joined along with his young wife in the celebration of the birth of Gefjon's daughter, and a year or two afterward, a son.

Then, one day, a traveler came to Billing's Dun.

Odin was working in the fields when a boy found him, telling him that there was a stranger, a stranger from Asgard, who sought him by name.


	14. Chapter 14

Was that it? Frigga demanded. Was that where he'd gone all those times? Had he another life somewhere? Another woman? A family?

No, he promised, it was nothing like that. He'd not set foot in Asgard since he'd left it all those years before. He'd sworn never to return. He'd never meant her to know.

Never to know her husband's name? she asked, calmly – in spite of all the tears on her beautiful face. She asked to hear it again, his name.

Odin, he told her.

He was tired. So tired.

Odin, she tested it. And his rank?

Sole remaining heir to the throne of the AllFather.

She looked at him, very quietly.

"I never wanted this," she said.

Odin looked at her in silence for a long moment.

"Neither did I."


	15. Chapter 15

He found her in the grey dark just before the sun would rise, standing by the edge of the river. It led to the sea. She'd always loved the sea.

The wind blew cold off the water.

He removed his cloak and went to put it around her.

"I'm not cold."

Quietly, he re-affixed it.

He stood beside her, looking out over the water.

"Why now?" she asked.

"My mother," he said, "has dies. My father needs one to leave behind him on the throne and the elders of my people demanded that it be one of the royal blood. They would accept no other. And," the air was cold and he folded his arms beneath his cloak, "my mother and I loved one another, once. I would be there for her funeral."

"When do you leave?"

"In a few hour's time."

"Mm," she shifted and he listened to the rustling of her dress. "I'd best go then. I have much to ready for our departure."

Odin turned as she moved, watching her, "You would accompany me?"

She stopped and looked back at him, very levelly in the thin, yellowing light. "I am your wife," she said. Her chin rose just slightly, and the blue of her eyes flashed with something he could not name. "It is my right."


	16. Chapter 16

Asgard.

Asgard was as he remembered it. It was dark and the people were unhappy. They feared their sovereign and they looked to Odin with hope naked in the eyes of those too young yet to know better. Their elders scuffed their feet and did not lift their gaze from the road. What was another hot-headed ruler to them? Bor would be slain and sent to the ancestors. Then his spawn would take his place and all would be as it always had been.

The city was dirty and he hated it more than he had recalled as he led his bride through it.

Frigga's eyes were wide. Everything was strange to her and she did not understand it. Bor made no secret of his scorn for her. But she carried it proudly, like a queen, and Odin was proud of her. She learned the way of the palace, and, gradually, she began to speak to him again.

On the night of his coronation as Asgard's king, she even smiled at him. Beneath the surface of the table at the feast, she touched his hand.

Bestla had been committed to the ancestors some days before. Odin had seen her body. Cold and white as ever she had been. Her face stern in death as it had been in life. Nothing showing of the speed and cunning, the flash and laughter that had colored her when he'd been a boy and he had loved her. All that remained were the jewels about her throat. They were beautiful as she was – even in death. And every bit as cold as ever she had been. They caught the light of the torches that flickered above her body and they reflected it outward from her breast.

Frigga asked him about her, some days later, when she found him and he was alone, thinking of his mother. And he told her things that he could recall. And Frigga sat beside him, and she held his hand.

And after the coronation, Bor left Asgard, crashing through the great doors of Odin's study, furious that his son would not follow him in his new vision of conquest.


	17. Chapter 17

Odin travelled, sometimes, when he could make time for it amid his duties as King.

He heard whispers in the dark places, whispers from the dead, whispers of a son Frigga should one day bear him. Stormbringer, they called him. And another, they spoke of. But him they would not name and they would not explain. When Odin pressed they only laughed and flittered away from his grasping.

 _Stormbringer_.

They whispered. And, then,

 _Do you know more now? Or not?_

And laughing they would vanish.

They left Odin with a gnawing discontent riling his blood, and naught he could do to quench it. If they would not answer him, then they would not, and he could only return home by the BiFrost, made great. He'd ordered a housing for it built, with better controls that it might be aimed and employed with more precision and less danger.

Bor had grumbled that Odin should demand such, but, with Odin as King, there was naught he could do to prevent it. And once it was completed and Bor saw its use he laughed and he clapped a hand heavily on his son's shoulder.

Odin found another in his wanderings, a youth with the sight of an eagle who could see across Realms and wearied not of watching them unfold before his golden eyes.

"Would you have a true vantage point from which to watch?" Odin asked him.

Suspicious, the boy asked to see this point of which the Asgardian spoke and Odin took him to the newly built Observatory over the fall of the waves that tumbled ever off the edge of Asgard into the Void below.

When he turned to the boy, who stood to his left, tears of wonder were running down his dark cheeks.

That was how Heimdal came to pledge fealty to Asgard.

When Odin was home, sometimes Frigga would come to him. He did not know what she did with herself in the palace or where her duties as queen led her, and he did not ask. She would read to him sometimes from some book she'd brought up from the Archives. He showed her the libraries and she set to cleaning them. Sometimes she would bring a board and they would play. On fair nights, they would sometimes walk in the gardens that she had wrested back from the wild.

Bor was commonly gone, which would have been exactly as Odin liked it had Odin not known that the lives of Asgardian warriors were being wantonly spent during Bor's absence. Every Realm must be subjected to Asgard's rule. Which Odin understood. Having a ruler who could lead them to their betterment would be for the good of all. But Bor did nothing for the people he conquered. He bled them dry and abandoned their husk to rot. And the conquered bowed their necks under his ruling.

Odin had been among those people in his wandering. He heard their speech. His father would not hear him, so Odin worked against his will. He bestowed gifts on the conquered Realms. He bettered their roads. He relieved them of the taxes claimed by his father that they might have those goods to better themselves as they saw fit.

He re-built much of the city of Asgard, and he saw the people begin to lift their heads.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **In the mythology, Odin was always wandering off and around. Teaching people things like hospitality, raping their daughters, prepping for the end of the world, etc. Often he was going in search of knowledge – usually of magic. There are two – I think two – myths where he raises the spirit of a dead witch to learn the future. In one of the poems, this spirit's line at the end of ever verse is, "Do you know more now or not?"**

 **As the myth-nerd that I am, I thought it would be cool to mix in.**

 **The numbers for views on this fic are great. Curious if you guys are reading, or just peeking. Let me know if you've got a pulse out there.**


	18. Chapter 18

**I'M STUPID. Posted chapter 17 twice. So sorry. I'm blaming the heat.**

 **I know there are WAY worse things out there right now. Hurricanes, for example. But it's SUPPOSED to be 60 degrees out this time of year, and it is 90. I'm so done. I was not built from this. (cue 'Immigrant Song')  
**

 **Once again, so sorry. I'm a dumbass.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Years passed.

Asgard prospered. The Realms prospered.

Bor mongered war and conquest and when those were not to be had he feasted and caroused and challenged warriors in the streets. He had never been fit to be a king.

Frigga told him to be gentle with his father. Bor was an old man, lost in a world of his own making with no connection to that of reality.

And the truth of Odin's own work, all the good he had wrought as King, soothed him.

Odin continually went away, to the dark places, to seek the guidance of the dead and to fuel the gifts he had purchased across the realms. To enhance the power of his spear and his kingship. His ravens, Hugin and Munin, flew each day across the realms and they told him of relics of great power, things that ought not be lost, things imperative to safeguard from the hands of those who might use them for ill. Odin went himself for these things. Or he sent those of his warriors whose ability he trusted.

More and more often he grew to be forced to send others.

He was weary. When he stood the realm swayed beneath his feet. His hands lost the steadiness of youth. His eyes dimmed until sometimes they were washed with black that he was hard-pressed to push away that he might see. When he lay down, sleep fled his eyes.

Frigga worried over him.

Finally, he went to the places. He asked what might be done.

 _These gifts were not given thee freely_

They hissed

 _Didst thou think thou should be allowed their keep free of charge?_

And they laughed at him.

"What should I do?" he asked.

 _What does the weary man?_

They jibbed

 _He sleeps_.

After that they would not answer him.

So Odin returned home. He did what was needful. The proper rites, the proper protections. Frigga was afraid. He could see that. But she kept it behind her eyes. It did not color her voice or the steadiness of her hand.

He left the realm to her.

And without any word to his father, he fell into the dizzy, whirring workings of the things he had pursued from the beginning. And he did not know if or when he might come back.

Or even what might come back in his place.


	19. Chapter 19

**To begin with, apologies for yesterday and uploading chapter 17 twice. I don't know how this site handles replaced chapters, so I don't know if any of my/this story's followers got any heads up, but I DID replace the 'false dimitri' with the true chapter 18.**

 **So sorry about that.**

 **Back on Tuesday when I edited and uploaded the doc for chapter 17, I goofed and labeled it 'chapter 18'. In the limited time I had, I couldn't find a way to re-name the chapter, so I just shrugged and said, "I'll remember that tomorrow."**

 **Sure.**

 **So, yesterday, when I uploaded the doc for chapter 18, I remembered and labeled it 'real chapter 18', then – because I'm a boob – I just went ahead and immediately forgot and posted chapter 17 again.**

 **AND. What makes it better is that I never would have noticed that. I don't really checkup on the stories I write once they're established, I just add chapters. The only reason I noticed is because Wildhorses1492 – who is amazing, btw – let me know.**

 **Long story short, so sorry, and thank you again to Wildhorses1492.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

When he woke he woke suddenly and powerfully with knowledge not of where he'd been or what he'd learned, but only of those who had been beside him. He remembered Frigga. She'd confided much in him those days. He recalled his father in the room, in a rage that he should not have been the first to know and how coolly Frigga had explained all she knew and sent him away. He recalled the reports and the questions and the orders given within the golden room. Frigga had scarcely left his side. She had shunned his throne, Hliskjalf – the all-seeing, which he had crafted that he might see the happenings of the Nine with his own eyes if Heimdal ever played him false. She had shunned it for his bedside.

He remembered these things, light-headed as he stood, as one remembers a dream, of which one was fully aware while asleep, but becomes muddied in the waking.

And more than that. Not only did he see. He understood.

It took him a day or two to recover his heart, from that place where he'd been, and to make sense of all he'd gained. To comprehend the power that lay just beyond the confines of his mind.

Frigga saw it, and she worried after him.

He dared not speak to her in those first days. When she looked at him he would hear the things she'd told him while he had slept and answer would be on the tip of his tongue when he realized she had in fact been speaking to him and said something very different from that which he had heard. He shook his head and claimed that he was not yet himself. Then he would go out alone to the garden.

On the evening of the third day he drew her out with him, to the gardens and he told her what he remembered of her admissions to him. How she was lonesome for home and her family, how foreign Asgard yet was to her, and most how she longed for a child and how she berated herself for her inability to provide him with an heir.

Combing her hair back from her face, he smeared away her sudden tears and promised her that he desired nothing more of her than her heart.

Gathering herself, she told him she had not known that he could hear her, in his sleep.

He did not tell her what words he had heard, breathed in the dark, of a stormbringer to be born to them. But he had a palace made for her, on the edge of the sea, where Asgard looked most like the place of her birth. And when it was done, he gave it to her.

Fensalir – the palace by the sea.

Seeing it for the first time, she was without words. But her eyes glowed and Odin knew that he had done well.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **It's the end of an era, and the dawning of the next. I'll be updating 'A Little More' tomorrow, for anybody who's interested where Frigga's head's at through all this. And back with more on Saturday!**


	20. Chapter 20

Thor was born during an unplanned stay at her 'Sea Palace'. He came unexpectedly and rather early.

The labor was a hard one, and Eir, who was the most-skilled healer Odin had been able to find and who was the one he had chosen to abide at the palace, advised that Frigga not carry a child again. Odin was not bothered by this.

He did not see the child much, tensions were rising in Jotunheim – the one realm remaining that might pose credible threat to Asgard – and that threat – coupled with his own father's insistence that war be necessary – kept him often from his wife and his tiny son.

The most he saw of the boy was at night, when he howled and would not be consoled by any. Then Odin would get up and he would take the babe from Frigga or from the nurse and he would go out on the walls and he would walk and, grudgingly, the boy would calm, and, eventually, sleep.

But such sweet images of domesticity were not to be his for long. War with Jotunheim loomed. And it was not as the previous wars of his Kingship had been. Those had been skirmishes, revolutions and uprisings of people far away with a power diminished.

Jotunheim was strong.

Odin went out with his father. They brought battle to Jotunheim's icy ground that it might not come to Asgard.

Years passed as battles raged. Only twice did the Jotnar front come near to Asgard, both times stopped before war could touch the Golden City.

Odin saw little of his wife in those years, and less of his son. During the time, on one of his rare visits to her, Frigga conceived a child. Odin had heard nothing in his whisperings of another child. Nothing in his sleeping-visions had alerted him.

Several months later, Odin received a missive from his wife, telling him the child was stillborn. She said nothing else. The regency rode hard on her. But it was not a thing with which he could busy his mind. Without his whole attention, his men would die.

Cloaked from even Heimdal's sight, Laufey led a front of his host to Midgard. He bore the Casket of Eternal Winters, prophesied to be the harbinger of Ragnarok and the End of All. Odin pursued and drove him from Midgard, but at great cost.

Upon arrival back in Jotunheim the Jotnar forces were met by Bor's men. Amid the turmoil of battle, Bor was snared in a sorcerer's net and dissipated to no more than a wash of snow amid the blackened stone.

In the wake of this father's death, Odin went again – in the darkest watch of the night – to the dark places. He would _know_ how to end this conflict. He would play at games with this cunning Jotun king no longer. And such demands carry high price.

He gave his eye for knowledge.

Odin took Laufey spare days after amid the rubble of Jotunheim's former stronghold – the city of Utgard. Odin had the casket sent to Asgard, to be housed amid the relics he had gathered. Laufey, he had released. He might govern his people, but he would remain vassal to the AllFather. Laufey resented, but he was wounded and he knew he had been beaten. Knew enough to draw away and take what leash he had been given.

Amid the ruins, Odin found a babe. Laufey's son, left to die. A bastard child, almost certainly a half-breed, for he was too small to be the offspring of a Jotun. Something had drawn Odin to the place. A power not unlike that he'd won for himself. Too strong for one of this tiny creature's size.

Perhaps left to die by its kind for scorn, perhaps for fear of what it might grow to become.

Seeking to be certain that the power emanated from the child, Odin reached out a hand and touched it and beneath his hand the child changed. Ridged blue Jotnar hide shifted to soft flesh like Odin's own. It shifted its form to suit that of its discoverer, and as it did the power of it shifted inward, like a flower secreting its lure after the insect it sought had been drawn in.

And drawn in, Odin was. He took up the child and hid it within his cloak. He fed it with bits of softened bread until he could bring it home with him in utmost privacy.

What was to be gained by spreading tales that the AllFather had taken in the bastard heir of Jotunheim?

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **I have a few things I could add to about this chapter and Odin's motivation therein. But I won't yet. It depends if any of my theories about 'Ragnarok' are correct. I don't want to run this fic out that far on a limb. I may do a one-off kind of "replacement" (or possibly a whole multi-chapter fic…might be worth it) to this chapter if it turns out they are.**

 **(I'm willing to go into detail for anybody who's interested, but as anybody who knows me knows, I can go on FOREVER. And as I don't want to bore anyone to death this time, feel free to PM me or pop it in as a review. I promise I'll get to it when I can.)**

 **It'll be a few days before I update this. Probably Tuesday-ish. Frigga has a few things to say at this point, and heaven help the fool who tries to stop her ;)**


	21. Chapter 21

**I know I said Tuesday. I don't know what I was thinking. Apologies.**

 **Probably about 3-5 years old here.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Giving a weary sigh, Odin rose from the table.

Neither of the children appeared to notice.

Loki had – only just recently, it seemed – grown to be old enough that he made a suitable playmate to his brother.

Thor shouted something, rocking the chair he straddled and Loki giggled.

Odin could have sworn that they had been fighting, moments ago.

The duties of a king were never done.

Frigga had no end of attention for the boys. She throve having two young sons. But Odin had other demands on his time. And on them rode the fate of Realms.

He left the boys to their nurse.

Frigga could not return home soon enough.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Gefjon was carrying a daughter, again, and had asked that Frigga be there for the birthing. As the boys were old enough to be left without her care, she had gone. "Only for a few days," she'd promised.

Neither boy seemed to Odin's eye to have realized that she was gone. They rattled around and broke things and clamored and shouted and laughed and hurt each other and finally, finally, they slept.

Odin had never enjoyed children, particularly. He loved his boys, but they were loud and scattered things, and he had much weighing on his mind.

Frigga claimed that he ought to spend more time with them, then he would better understand their rioting. Odin told her that they had a mother for that. One day, when they were grown, he would teach them all they need know and they would understand one another well-enough then.

Loki had been abed for the better part of an hour already. Thor, on the other hand… Thor would have to be dealt with.

"BOY!" Odin shouted.

For one moment, everything was quiet. Then, Thor poked his blonde head out from under the desk. His eyes were wide and fearful.

He was a small boy, yet.

Odin softened, if marginally.

Thor saw it and, gaining confidence, he crept out and came to stand at Odin's knee.

Odin put out a hand and tousled the boy's hair. "To bed," he said.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Odin became gradually aware of a presence in the doorway behind him and, frowning, he raised his head from his work and turned his back on the desk to face his intruder.

As he'd thought, it was one of his sons.

He had rather expected it to be Thor.

Loki was looking at him with his curls rumpled and tiny bare feet showing under the hem of his over-sized night shirt. His green eyes were very round in his little face. He hung on the doorknob and starred at Odin like he was afraid.

"Loki," Odin set aside his pen. Why it was children could not just operate as expected, he could not understand. "What are you doing up at this hour?" He'd thought Thor the worst of his problems. And not only that, but properly dealt with.

Then the situation became incalculably worse.

Loki began to cry.

For a moment, Odin did not do anything, only watched the little dark wisp of a child as it wept in the doorway to his study and wondered what it was that he had done to prompt such a display.

Then he sighed.

"Come here."

The child had grown roots. He only stood in the doorway and sobbed.

Odin beckoned but the child still did not come, so, Odin got up and went to the doorway himself. He knelt down and he gathered the shuddering little creature against him. Tiny fingers found the fabric of his collar and hooked into it.

"I," Loki sobbed, "I wa-want _mama_!"

"She's not here,"

That didn't seem to help.

He hadn't any idea how to do this.

"I am here," Odin offered. "What has happened?"

After a couple of confused moments, Loki gave a little whimper. He moved his head on Odin's shoulder. "I'm s-scared," he whispered.

"What have you to fear?" Odin asked.

Dark brows furrowed in a question on the child's face.

"I am here," Odin promised. "Heimdal guards the realm, and all is well. Besides," he tried to shift Loki on his lap but the child did not want to turn from his shoulder. "You are already quite fearsome yourself."

The boy's eyes flickered and his dark head tipped shyly. His breath jerked from his crying.

"It would be a foolish creature indeed who though to attack you, Loki."

The beginnings of a smile tugged his mouth.

"That's better," Odin said. "Come, let us return you to your bed."

Loki's hands tightened on the collar of Odin's shirt. "I don' wanna go by myse'f," he said. The little breaths began to rush in his chest again, "I want –"

"Shh. I will accompany you."

Odin stood and set Loki solidly onto the floor. He was very small, Odin thought, standing beside him. Very young, yet. Barely more than a baby.

Uncertainly, the child licked his lips and he snuffled back the start of his tears. Then he put out one hand and took Odin's in it.

Odin's heart did something peculiar in his chest.


	22. Chapter 22

**Still in the 3-5 years old bracket.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

"Tell me about Ratatosk," Loki settled on his lap.

"Not _that_ again!" Thor moaned.

Odin ignored his elder son. "You are quite fond of him," he said.

Loki put out his tongue at his brother, then turned like it hadn't happened and nodded solemnly at his father. "I like 'im."

From across the room, Frigga smiled at them. It was one of those rare times when they were all together.

"Well, Ratatosk…" Odin began.

Thor grumbled to himself where he lay sprawled on his stomach on the floor. Frigga shushed him.

Ratatosk was a squirrel who was said to live among the branches of Yggdrasil. A mischief-maker and problem solver. Odin thought perhaps his small fosterling might feel some kinship with the creature. He did not discourage it. They were more interesting tales than the ones Thor chose – stories of war and conquest. Bor had spoken of little else. A pity Thor had never known his grandfather.

Odin did not like the flashes of his own father he saw blooming in his young son. But he reminded himself that he had been a fool as a boy, and that the child had time to out-grow it yet.


	23. Chapter 23

**They're about the same age as in the beginning of** _ **Thor**_ **. Maybe 5-7 yrs?**

 **Eventually there will be more of a story here, sort of. Right now the "episodes" are a little more like a collage. Promise that's not the plan for much longer.**

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Thor was a good boy, strong, with a fair following among the others of his age. He stood out, with his height and his fair hair. He was well-skilled, advanced in his training, and what was more, the boy knew it. He swaggered through the palace and ordered the servants about like he was any great lord. He over-stepped his place. But, as Frigga was ever to remind him, he was young, yet. And Odin set his growing frustration with the boy aside.

If ever the boy would be still and _silent_ a moment to take instruction, there might be something Odin could do about it. But Thor was neither still nor quiet, even when he slept.

Loki followed him about like a worshipping little shadow. He was smaller than his brother and more quiet. He was a bit behind the others of his age, because he was often sick. Eir was confounded.

Frigga had fretted to distraction over his health in those first, precarious years. But Odin had told her that illnesses were not alike across realms. In the womb, a child was prepared for the illnesses that preyed on their kind, and further, after birth, a child was strengthened by its mother's milk. Loki hadn't the advantage of an Asgardian mother, and only briefly a wetnurse. And a wetnurse was decidedly inferior to a child's own mother. The mother's milk would be tailored to the environment and to the child, where a wetnurse's couldn't be. He lacked the extra aid such preparations for the worlds could give him, but he was strong. He would learn to protect himself from the illnesses of their realm. He would grow stronger by it.

That had calmed her somewhat. She sat by the boy's bedside and she sang to him or told him stories. And soon enough, the boy would be back on his feet, recovering his place in his training with an impressive speed, though he was behind his peers, and he did not enjoy the exercises as many of them did. He preferred to read with his mother, or to wander the gardens with a lost expression in his green eyes, as though his mind were far away. He did not speak much. Frigga laughed at Odin when he expressed concern over it. Loki was rarely quiet, she told him, when left alone with Thor or with her.

Loki spared little love for those children who were nearer his own age, preferring above all else the company of his brother. The two got on quiet well, when they were not at one another's throats. From what little he saw, Odin did not know which situation was worse. They vied one against the other who might make the most noise or cause the most damage to the palace.

They were brothers. It was as it should be.

Odin did not go often anymore to the dark places for knowledge. The voices there had told him much. There was little, he felt, that was not clear to him with the wisdom afforded by his missing eye, his throne, and his all-seeing guardian. As AllFather and king, his rule was absolute. He was no longer called to bow to the warmongering of his father. The Realms were at peace. The people of his own realm were contented. The City sparkled in the light of a clear sun.

The Realm Eternal was _finally_ at peace.

It was as it should be.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **If you really like things chronological, and you've been reading all these updates with those of 'A Little More' as I published them, then there's one more update of 'A Little More' (chapter 9) (tomorrow) and then I think the first…8…chapters of 'In the End'. ;)**


	24. Chapter 24

**Probably somewhere in the 10/12 year old range**

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Once, Odin overheard the boys, playing at some game in the courtyard below him. He had stepped out of his study for some air, and they had no way of knowing of his presence.

They leapt at one another, each testing their strength, learning each the other's failings and moving to take advantage of them and gain superiority.

One day, that knowledge would be put to better use. They would each know the failings of the other better than their own, and they would move into that place to protect one another.

He'd seen it before, in a mock-fight between his sons and several of their companions. He'd watched, proud behind a blank mask, as his sons had drawn nearer together. He'd watched their movements, Thor's, sweeping and powerful and Loki's, moving around them and under, darting and pointed.

Loki had manifested a strong ability with magic, not unlike Frigga's save in the concentration with which it had come upon him. He was learning its control and he often chose – against the directions of his instructors – to employ it in his training. Frigga encouraged him. She hadn't grown here. She did not know how such a thing was sure to be accepted. Or if she did, she ignored it. Odin wondered sometimes, when he could spare mind from his duties to think on it, whether Loki should have to answer for that to his peers, or if they would respect the strangeness in him due to his blood.

Already Loki was prone to tricks. It was a rare day that went by without somewhere a crash or a scream followed by someone's shouting after the younger prince and his sharp answering laugh.

Thor's games kept Loki from his tricks and Loki's questions kept Thor from following the heady glow of his own strength. They each kept the other from their chosen mischief.

Odin wondered at the state of either realm should these two boys have grown apart from one another and he deemed his actions a great service to the Nine, bringing them together. They complimented one another well, both in temperament and skill.

There was a shout from below, followed by Loki's laugh.

An ache radiated from the sight of an old wound.

Odin remembered Laufey's cunning and the echoing of his laughter against the black stones. And for a moment, the laughter below him was not that of his son.

The memory of his own father's voice as his body faded into the snow, forgotten after so many years, reverberated in his mind.

Shaking off the sudden chill, Odin turned and went back to his duties.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **If you really like things chronological, and you've been reading all these updates with those of 'A Little More' as I published them, then chapters 10 and 11 of 'In the End' should come next.**


	25. Chapter 25

**Probably somewhere in the 12/14 year old range**

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Odin's steps rang hollow on the tile floor. Merely an hour remained before the ceremony. Nearly all was made ready. He'd dressed. He knew what it was he would say. Only the last things were to be seen after, barring some disaster. The sun warmed the stone and glinted off his armor. A breeze fluttered the pennants above.

Around the corner, within the Feasting Hall, Odin could make out the distinct sounds of a scuffle. Grimly, he predicted what he was likely to see.

Wisdom was a thing his sons lacked.

Ire rising in his blood, Odin lengthened his step.

He turned the corner to see them grappling an arm's length from the laden tables, and only just in time to watch as Thor swept his brother's legs from beneath him. Loki tumbled backward, caught at the knees on the long bench beside the table, and fell over it and under the table, pulling a shower of golden plates and flatware and the non-perishable foodstuffs laid out for the feast down about his ears.

The crash was enough to send those who ought to have been present to prevent the disaster, scuttling from their places to stammer apologies and begin cleaning up.

Without a _thought_ for the mess he'd made, Thor dove forward after his brother. Odin caught him by the back of his shirt and hauled him back.

"Fool of a boy!" Odin shouted, "have you _any_ idea what mess you've made?"

Sparks flashed in Thor's blue eyes, "I will _not_ be played for a fool and Loki –"

There was a further crash as Loki tried to extricate himself from the wreckage and dislodged a tray that came down on top of him.

A man came forward to help and Odin glared at him. The man drew back without a word.

The distraction had given Odin the clarity to draw back his temper. "Emissaries," he told Thor, "are coming to the Gladsheim _tonight_ , and I would have them see my realm, my sons, and _my feasting hall_ , at their best."

Thor opened his mouth to say something and Odin gave him a firm shake.

"Your honor," he said, coolly when Thor was quiet, "Would be better upheld by your good behavior and appearance this night. Change your shirt. This one you tore."

He released Thor's tunic and the boy stepped backward. His eyes flashed murderously, "Father –"

"Enough!" Odin shouted.

Thor stopped.

"We will speak of this after the feast, and not before. Ready yourself and do what you can to make good the damage you've already caused."

Setting his mouth sullenly Thor flung about and left.

Loki was sprawled with his knees caught against the bench, and the tableside, completely inadequate to extricate himself from his position.

A bowl that stood precariously on the edge of the table, trembled, then fell to the floor with a resounding _clang_ and the bounce of golden fruit.

And Loki began to laugh.

Swallowing a sigh, Odin shook his head. "Get up, Boy,"

Unable to stop laughing, Loki tried to push himself up but his hand slipped and as he smacked his head against the tableside the laughter choked in his throat.

Odin extended a hand.

Loki opened his eyes and blinked at the hand a little startledly before realizing what it was for and meeting it with his own so Odin could draw him clear.

A bruise was forming to the left of his eye, but he seemed hale, if sullied, beyond that.

"Nothing worse than the eye?"

Gingerly, the boy touched the spot with his fingertips, "I don't think so,"

"Foolish children," Odin breathed. "Could you not have chosen a day of less import? Or perhaps – in the _least_ – a different room?"

Loki looked down, catching his lip in his teeth. But Odin had seen how much he wanted to laugh.

Ignoring that, because he _ought_ yet be angry, Odin took his shoulder and turned him to the door, "Go the Healers. See if Eir has a thing that might do away with the bruise before tonight. I would have my sons present their best face. Not their most common."

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **If you really like things chronological, and you've been reading all these updates with those of 'A Little More' as I published them, then chapters 12 and 13 of 'In the End' should come next.**


	26. Chapter 26

**Thor's about 14 here**

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The air was cooler, outdoors, in the twilight. Even with the wide windows, the summer's heat was not always kind to those confined within the palace. His knees were stiff from the battles of his youth, and his time spent since, long-sitting. He remembered the days of old and he knew that those days were behind him now. He was no more a youth. His sons were growing older. Thor was already spare moments from achieving his own height, though, he himself had never been exceedingly tall, and he expected both of his sons' stature to overshadow his.

And there Thor was. Out alone, pacing his mother's garden.

"It is not like you to be out, unattended and unarmed."

Thor whirled, "Father! I," he smiled falsely, "I did not hear you."

"Come," Odin beckoned him, "walk with me."

Thor fell in step beside him. Uncharacteristically pensive.

"Something is on your mind."

"No," Thor shrugged, "It was too hot indoors is all, and I have no…"

He felt Odin's look and he stopped.

"You and your brother share many things," Odin said wryly, turning back to the gravel path. "The skill for lying not among them."

Thor gave an uneven laugh.

The crunch of their feet sounded in the garden and the trilling of some evening bird rose from the brush.

"I don't know if I can do it." Thor finally said.

"What thing is it you speak of?"

Thor let out a long breath, "I don't know." He rubbed his brow. "It's foolish."

"A thing is not foolish if it causes your hand to falter."

"Did you ever feel like it was too much for you?"

"Ah," Odin considered that for a long moment. Thor had many faults. Self-doubt not amongst them. To the contrary, it was Thor's growing arrogance that was becoming more and more his elder son's defining trait.

Odin looked up at the sky and saw – just barely – the first star. "Your mother's lilies grow well this year," he said. "I'm sure she is pleased."

"I'd assume so," Thor grumbled.

Odin nearly smiled. No doubt the youth thought it folly to speak of _flowers_. He was still very young. "There was a time, that _I_ did not want the throne," he said.

"You," Thor tipped his head, "You did not _want_ it?"

"No. I would not have taken it had Bor offered it with my refusal at the price of my life."

"Why?"

"For fears such as yours," Odin said. "For fear that I should do a lesser job than my father and lead the realms to ruin." He breathed the heavy air of the descending night. "It is a heavy thing to carry, the Fate of the Realms, but when it falls to you," he clapped Thor's shoulder, "you will be ready."

Uncertainty flashed in Thor's blue eyes. But after a moment, he inclined his head.

"Do not walk too long alone," Odin told him.

He left Thor to his thoughts.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **Odin might be spinning the truth a little here…but I** _ **think**_ **he's trying to help…who knows.**

 **If you've been reading all these updates with those of 'A Little More' as I publish them, then chapters 14, 15 and 16 of 'In the End' are next**


	27. Chapter 27

**This one happens within the same basic time-frame as yesterday's chapter (kind of as a flip side. Yesterday an examination of Thor's insecurities, today, Loki's), so Loki's maybe 12-ish.**

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Odin came upon his younger son spare moments after the trial. Both youths had been tested by the weapon masters that their progress might be reported to him. He did not expect that account for several hours yet. By the looks of it, he would need it not when it came. Thor, he had not worried after. Thor, he knew, exceeded his trainers' expectations. He had extended the examination to both his sons that neither might think too much of it.

"I take it your test did not go well?"

Slumped against the wall, Loki only shrugged one shoulder.

Odin did not understand his younger son.

Thor, he did. Thor would rail and storm against a ruling he found unfavorable. He would demand the trial again and shout that his examiners judged unfairly until finally they would have to call Odin to look to his son for fear towards the integrity of the courtyard.

Loki took to failure equally poorly. He took it too much to heart. He crumbled under the expectations of his elders and lacked the strength to get back up once he had found himself fallen below them.

"You are young," Odin told him, "You have much time, yet, in which to learn."

Loki would not look at him.

Odin closed the little distance between them and tipped Loki's chin to face him.

Tears trembled on the edges of his eyes, but they did not fall. As soon as Odin moved his hand Loki turned his head away.

"A prince mustn't slouch," Odin said.

Loki straightened a little.

Finding him thus resistant, Odin left him. This weakness in his son was a troubling one. To rely so heavily on the words of another could only breed heartache, and he would have so much more for his boy. Whether the boy felt it or no, Odin would have his son exhibit strength. A bared weakness was an invitation to those who would prey upon it.

But, as he had said, Loki was, as yet, very young. He had time yet to understand what his father hadn't the words to explain to him. The boy had time to grow.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **This one was also a challenge from a friend. A younger friend of mine challenged me to write a scene where a parent was saying something the parent saw as encouragement and the child saw as criticism. Which was A LOT easier than I think she thought it would be. But there it is.**

 **If you've been reading all these updates along with those of 'A Little More', then chapters 17-21 of 'In the End' are chronologically next. I think.**


	28. Chapter 28

**Loki's probably the equivalent of 16/17 at this point. Old enough to think he's got it.**

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"Idiot boy!"

Loki did not waver where he stood with his hands folded behind him. If anything, he had the audacity to look _annoyed_.

From Thor, Odin had come to expect this. Loki he had somehow thought might show _some_ modicum of _sense_.

"Have you _no_ idea the consequences of your own actions?"

"But Father, I –"

"You left the gate _open_ ," Odin spat, "Enough that you vanish from the _Realm_ without leave or notice. You leave the _gate_ ," he spread his hands, "open, behind you!"

Loki gave an exasperated breath, " _Nothing_ happened!"

Odin stepped in close to him and raised one finger. He wanted very much to strike his son, but he was not as was his father. He was not Bor. He would not bow to his temper. "Not," it occurred to him that Loki's height had surpassed his own. He drew back, "Not yet."

"Father," Loki said, a _touch_ more respectfully, "you _know_ the valor of our men. You _know_ the strength of the Destroyer –"

"Do not presume, _Boy_ , to tell me what I know!"

"Father, it was only Alfheim!"

"How if a volkang had come through?"

Odin nearly smiled, watching as the idea worked through Loki's mind. Clearly, it had not occurred to him before.

"What damage might that have done to our city? What price in blood would it have asked? I will not have it, Loki. You will keep to your quarters until next I summon you."

"But Father –"

"No!"

Loki fell back a step.

" _You_ will _obey_ your father and your king."

Loki looked at him for one long moment.

"You are dismissed."

Turning on his heel, Loki vanished.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **If you've been reading all these updates as I update 'A Little More', then chapters 23-26 of 'In the End' are chronologically next.**

 **Part…idk…three…starts tomorrow-ish. I kinda hafta hustle. Thor and Loki's parts of this should be coming in soon, and while the Loki one is well on its way…I actually haven't started Thor's…**


	29. Chapter 29

**Sorry. As usual, my estimates of time/distance are off. Apologies.**

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Weariness plagued him.

It dogged Odin's every step and wavered in film behind his eyes. It weighted his hands and dragged at his old bones.

It was not as it had been before. Now he was old. He feared, sometimes, that he might have waited too long. That the journey back might be too long, even for the man he once had been. But he had been unwilling to leave the regency in Frigga's hands again. Though she said little to him of it, he knew that the rule of realms had never been a thing she sought, and, in his heart, he regretted tearing her from her home and her people, all those years ago.

And what was more, their sons were nearly of age.

Just nearly. And what a few more years when they were so close?

Even though they were the both of them hot-headed fools, constantly at one another's throats.

The weariness of the Odinsleep hung heavy on him. The winter's wind whispered in his father's voice. The darkness of night, seethed with the voices he'd sought in the dark places all those years before. The voices he no longer needed in the Eternal Realm. The bright home he had crafted for his sons, his wife, his people. He'd carved it for them, and kept it. And when he woke the voices flitted away like pointless dreaming and he fixed his eyes on his city.

Asgard.

His mind began to wander.

"Soon," he told Frigga. "Soon I will need him to take my throne."

"They are ready," she answered.

"No," he said, "They have much yet to learn."

Tracing the back of his hand with her fingertips, Frigga smiled at him. "Didn't we?"

Finally, the weight grew to be too much.

Thor, arrogant fool that he was, with his four greatest friends, his brother, and Frigga his mother as witness, would be crowned King.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **And here…we…go**


	30. Chapter 30

**TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 _Do you swear to guard the nine realms?_

 _And do you swear to preserve the peace?_

 _Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and to pledge yourself only to the good of the realms?_

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

Frost giants. In the Weapon's Vault of Asgard itself. The Destroyer had dealt with the threat, as intended. Two guards lay slain, as did the giants themselves.

Such threat was unlikely to have come from the Giants themselves. They lacked the heart of their realm, the Casket of Ancient Winters. It was the source of their power as a people, and, cut off from it as they were, they had no ability to travel as they must have travelled so to come to his realm. Odin had ordered the Casket taken, at such great loss, that they might have no more any great sorcerer to open the ways across realms.

An outside force had aided them. Of this, Odin was sure.

Though his sons allowed him little time more to think on it.

Thor demanded retaliation. He raged and he thundered and Odin remembered why he had told Frigga their fool son was unready for the throne. The Odinsleep was needful for him, but not so needful as to leave this son on the throne.

Odin knew that his sons scorned his rule. Thor, overtly, loudly, and Loki, more insidiously, hidden from his eye. Odin preferred the former. The former might be directly dealt with. The later was more difficult. Loki had not grown with years out of his silence and his tricks any more than Thor had grown out of his stupidity and pride.

But. The two could work against one another to his benefit. They had in the past and they would, no doubt, farther in the future. Frigga had said nearly the same when she assured him that they could only aid each other while he slept and Thor was on the throne.

She would not like that he had revoked Thor's coronation.

But Thor would learn humility. By whatever means necessary.

His sons both were men grown. If they would not abide by his rule while he sat astride Hlidskjalf itself, what was he to expect of them while he lay asleep. He would have them learn the consequences of their actions while yet he bode with them in the waking world.

Sinking wearily down, Odin knew he hadn't much time.

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

"AllFather," a guardsman saluted him.

Returning to himself, Odin focused his one eye on the man.

Distantly, Odin realized that the position of Asgard's sun was not as it had been. Longer time than he had intended had gone by.

"You may speak."

"AllFather," the man repeated, "I bring missive from the Prince, Loki. He bade me inform you that Thor has made good on his word to you."

Odin rose. "When did he give you this word?"

The man looked confused, startled by Odin's agitation. He blinked once, then stammered, "Only just now, my lord."

Odin watched the man for the space it took to inhale one breath. Then he looked away. The man lied. Likely, Loki had spoken with the man within the hour, but certainly not as recently as the man implied.

It angered him that the einherjar could speak loyalty to him and yet scorn one he claimed as his blood.

But such was Loki's affair. He was man grown. Should he desire the respect of the men he had but to win it. And should he desire aid in that, or advice, he need but ask.

"Ready my horse," Odin told the man, "I ride for BiFrost."

 **TLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTLTL**

 **If you want more "backstory" and more of my immediately pre-coronation theories, see the last couple chapters of 'In the End'**


	31. Chapter 31

**Sorry, lazy chapter today. It's one of the deleted scenes.**

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"How could you have done this?"

Frigga rushed at him, her skirts caught up in her hands, her face lined with worry and dark with anger. Her breast heaved and she stopped directly before him, demanding explanation.

Odin flushed with rage his own. Once, only _once_ , he would have his wife's support in the raising of their sons. "Do you understand what he has set in motion?" he demanded of her. "He's taken us to the brink of war!"

"But banishment?" tears wavered on the edges of her eyes, "Would you lose him forever?" she pleaded, "He's you son!"

Odin watched her. "What would you have done?" he asked.

She faltered, "I would not have exiled him to a realm of mortals," her voice was unsteady, and he would comfort her, but he had none to give. "Stripped of his powers," she continued, "to suffer alone. I would not have had the heart."

"That is why," he bit the words off, "I am king."

She would protest, but she had no voice.

"I too grieve the loss of our son," he struck his chest, "But there are some things even I cannot undo."

He thought of Loki. Of the knowledge almost certainly that he had gained on their misguided quest. And he knew that he had to go to his son.

The floor rocked under him.

"You could bring him back," Frigga pled.

"No!" Odin roared. Then he gave a soft breath, "Thor's fate is in his own hands now."


	32. Chapter 32

Odin found himself in the dizzy, whirring workings of the dark. There was power in the realms. Power he had pursued from the beginning.

And, as all things, power has price.

He had not understood that in his youth.

Frigga had known it. And she had been the first to try and impart to him that lesson. He would that he had been able to teach it to his sons. But his efforts had failed. Thor was lost, on Midgard, his future uncertain, and Loki – his heart was in a darkness greater than Odin had guessed, plagued with hurts Odin had never known. Odin longed to offer healing he knew not how to give.

Nor did the Norns allow him time.

The Odinsleep washed over him in a wave of pain and dizziness, then a numb darkness that burst into a thousand colors and noises and when he became aware of it, when he knew the place for what it was, he fought against it.

It was the price of the power he held.

The voices fluttered about him. They laughed.

Odin would give up all the power ever he had held to right his realm.

Nothing could shatter the hold of the sleep on him.

Perhaps, he allowed, Frigga had been right. Perhaps it was time to let another direct the realms. Perhaps he had done enough. He was so weary…

Odin heard voices above him. He knew not the meanings

…through fractured nothings, he understood…


	33. Chapter 33

He jolted awake.

"Odin!"

Alive with energy that coursed through his every vein, Odin brushed her away. He donned his armor and he demanded his horse.

His mind did not move. It was still, glutted with all he _understood_ , though he could touch none of it. In time it would crash around him like the letting loose of a great dam and it would be better should he not do any great thing until that time.

But the Norns had not granted him time. By his folly he had not the luxury.

He rode to the end of BiFrost, shattered by the actions of his boys and he just managed to catch Thor as he fell. Bolstered by his sleep, the halt of their fall and their joined weight did not drag his arm from its socket, nor did it draw him after them into the Void.

The scream of BiFrost slipped silverly away into the unknownable depths of the Void below.

Loki's eyes met his, searching. "I could have done it, Father," he called. "I could have done it! For you," he pled, "For all of us."

The world shattered before Odin's eyes. He saw what was, what had been. And he understood.

And he knew he had no ability to save his boy.

He was too near the source to alter what had passed.

Loki begged for understanding, for acceptance, but the poison ran deep. And only Loki had the ability to draw it out. Aiding him in that would kill him.

Should it draw Loki's hate for the remainder of his life, Odin would not be his death.

 _"…I'm no more than another stolen relic, to be locked up, here, until you have use of me?"_

His throat closed and for the first time in longer than he could rightly recall tears were the cause of the blurring of his eye's sight.

"No Loki," he said.

The light winked all out from behind Loki's eyes.

And he let go.

Thor cried out, but there was nothing to be done. Odin let his head hang down.

The weight of what he had allowed crushed his chest. But he would have to believe in his son now. Believe that he had the strength.

When Thor had ceased struggling against him, Odin drew him up onto the remains of the bridge.

Dragging himself to his knees, Thor smashed his fist against the bridge. It fractured under his blow. He made no move for Mjollnir as he hauled himself to his feet, and he made no move toward his father.

Wearily, Thor made his way back to the city.

Odin remained. Looking down over the edge of BiFrost.

As though that might bring him back.


	34. Chapter 34

Days dragged to weeks, and weeks to months.

Frigga wept. For days she would not so much as speak to him. Then she came again to his side, and she wept, and she told him that she did not understand, but she was not willing to lose him also, in her grief.

He asked her if she yet blamed him for their son's death.

She said no. She told him wearily of how Loki had been, that last day. She blamed herself, she said. For not catching him. He'd fallen long before he let go of that spear.

Odin promised her that the fault lay not with her. If with any, it was with him. He ought to have heeded her long ago.

She sought him, he knew that. Using the ways she had learned as a girl. They ways of her people. She sought him in the reflections on pools of water, through the fractured truth of mirrors, in fire.

They did not speak of it, but he knew by the lines on her face that she did not find him.

For a long while, Thor did not speak to him either. He rarely left the confines of his room. Then, finally, one day and utterly without warning, Thor came to him and he told Odin that he knew he would never be as wise a king as he, nor would he ever be a better father.

But that was only half the task. Two sons Odin had.

Then, in the dark, Odin found him.


	35. Chapter 35

Invader of Midgard.

Introducer of Intergalactic War to a Primitive Realm.

Murderer of Innocents.

Pawn in a Game, bigger, likely, than even he knew. Willing, or no.

Odin's joy at finding his lost son, when his hope had all but given out that such a thing might ever be, was short-lived.

Four paths had been laid out before Loki's feet when he'd fallen into the Void.

Death.

Madness.

Healing.

Vengeance.

Odin had prayed that his son might have strength enough to evade the first two, and wisdom enough for the third.

Perhaps there was yet a way. Thor too had been a fool.

Odin himself, had not always been wise.

"Bring him back," Odin told Thor. "By any means necessary. And return the Tesseract to our Vaults."

Perhaps there was yet a way to save his son.


	36. Chapter 36

Odin offered Loki a chance.

When Thor brought him home, Thor led him, manacled and muzzled, as Odin had ordered it done, to the throne room.

Odin did not know Loki's will in these happenings. And he would not have Loki honey-tongue his way from Thor's grasp. Or, worse, take the cube and vanish back to whatever master had claimed him.

Abandoning his burden and without a backward glance, his open face dark with pain, Thor left them.

Odin had not watched them from his throne. He was weary. And he could not see his child fall into darkness again. Should he be lost, Odin had no desire to see it done. He would wait and he would gather what strength he well knew he would need for their return home.

He was not so young, as he had been. And his sleep had not given him rest as it had, so long ago.

And there were many other weights beside. Unrest seethed on the edges of the realms. Dangers without did not keep their distance as they had. Word of BiFrost's fall had spread. And Odin was drained with sending Thor even just the short way to Midgard.

Weariness hung a heavy mantle on old shoulders as he watched his elder son on his errand with the Stone to the Vaults.

Loki's eyes did not follow Thor as he left. They were poison-green and they flashed with seething emotions. Among them frustration, pain, fear, weariness.

It was a deep weariness, Odin judged. Loki had endured great strain. Odin thought it probable, with his son's pride taken into account, that Loki was barely keeping his feet.

Such was the boy's choice.

Odin ordered the muzzle removed.

Then, at his next order, the guards cut their stiff salute, and they stepped away.

Odin sat back.

"My son returns to me," he said at length, gripping the shaft of his spear. "A criminal, defeated, and bound."

Loki made no move to respond, but looked steadily at a place just above his head.

"Have you nothing to say in defense of your actions on Midgard?"

Loki looked at him one moment. Then he gestured with one manacled hand to his chest, "Me?" He blinked as though startled and shifted on his feet, "I'm sorry," he said, "I thought surely you'd already decided. No," his chin jerked upwards. "I have nothing to say to you."

Then he smiled, wide and shameless and Odin felt his old temper flare to life in his chest.

He had reason to believe that Loki had quite a bit more to say.

Odin took a long breath. His hand drew tighter on Gungnir.

"Perhaps," he decided, "a stay in the dungeons might loosen your tongue." He raised his chin. "Guards."

Proudly, Loki closed his teeth, though he seethed in the depths of his eyes.


	37. Chapter 37

Several times in those first days, Odin had Loki brought to him.

But the destruction of BiFrost had yet to be reversed, and the bubbling turmoil amidst the Realms would soon escalate to full warfare if nothing was done.

Odin had little time for the son that drained the utmost of his patience.

Frigga visited Loki often in his cell. They had shared great confidence during Loki's youth, Odin had hoped that he might admit some great thing to her. But if the boy relayed anything to her, it was a thing she would not tell.

Odin determined that he had little time, and objects other that might benefit from his attention. Loki was obstinate. Time would wear him down. He had the guards bring Loki less often.

Finally, Frigga came to him as he sat on his throne, surveying the damage caused by Asgard's absence from the realms.

"It has been some time," she said.

"Yes," he did not bother to ask of what she spoke. They both knew full well. "He shows no sign of repentance."

"It _has_ been some time," she repeated herself, offering it gently, touching his arm with her hand. A hope. A shadow of her old smile hovered on her mouth.

Odin sighed. He looked at his queen. "Have you in your talks with him gleaned any reason for expectation of that?"

Her eyes glowed, "I have ever dwelt in hope for my menfolk."

"Then you have no _new_ reason to urge this, today."

"I have not seen him today," she said. "But that the time has seemed to me to be over-long."

Odin closed his eye. The unrest in Vanaheim weighed heavily on his mind.

BiFrost was in working order again, and he considered that Asgard itself was steady. Thor's strength could be used elsewhere. It ought to have occurred to him sooner. He would send Thor, when Thor returned from the western coast, to Vanaheim to aid his friends. The conflict there was troubling in its nearness and ferocity. Thor could settle it. And, besides, he had sent the Lady Sif there. Thor could stand more contact with her. It had not been so long ago that Odin had thought to hear that they planned to wed.

But that was before Thor's banishment and his foolish preoccupation with mortals.

"Fine," he said. "I will send for him. But this will be the last time."

She pressed his arm.


	38. Chapter 38

Loki entered, manacled and flanked by guards as he always was for these meetings, with all of his usual flair for the dramatic.

Watching Loki, his face a mask for the temper writhing already in his breast, Odin wondered if it were possible he make a louder sound with the chains as he walked. If he wanted them off, the offer that had stood from the first remained. This childish show of insolence would elicit little by way of sympathy.

The boy had a 'silver tongue'. A pity he did not so much as attempt its use.

Frigga had drawn away at the sound of his approach. She did not remain for their talks. She and Loki spoke at other times. On her way to the door, Odin noticed her pause, and he heard the rustle of her skirts as she turned back and reentered the room.

"Loki," she said.

Loki turned his head to face her. "Hello Mother," he said, his voice bent to mock. He smiled thinly, "Have I made you proud?"

It was not his usual manner of speech. It was a show. A show for his benefit. Odin was not pleased with Loki's games. They wasted what little time he had remaining.

Frigga knew this. "Please," she said, "do not make this worse for yourself."

"Define 'worse.'"

Loki was better than this. Wiser. From Thor, Odin had always expected argument and difficulty. From Loki Odin had not expected this. He was meant for better things.

The fact that Loki refused to attain those things fanned the frustration Odin already felt.

But he let it go. He'd lost the hope he held for his son. A hand offered in friendship Loki scorned. An enemy, he would speak with. And Loki had never thought the two of them to be friends.

And he had so little strength left. So little time.

"Enough."

They both looked at him.

"I would speak with the prisoner alone."

Frigga looked at their son, her eyes laden with silent warning, but she spoke no further word to either as she left them.

Loki watched her go.

Then she was gone from his line of sight and he took the last few exaggerated steps and stopped directly before the throne. He hit his heels together in a kind of salute – a mockery of the deference he had once paid his father and his king. Odin watched him as he laughed.

It was a forced thing. A mockery. A play.

"I really don't see what all the fuss is about."

Anger licked up in Odin's lungs, but he did not allow it to color his voice. "Do you truly not feel the gravity of your crimes?" he asked. "Wherever you go there is war, ruin, and death."

"I went down to Midgard to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god," Loki looked pointedly at him, "just like you."

"We are not gods," Odin said simply, "We are born, we live, we die. Just as humans do."

"Give or take five thousand years."

Loki smirked.

Odin watched his son. And he wondered from whence this bitterness in him had stemmed. Frigga suspected he had undergone horrors in the Void, and Odin couldn't say. Hlydskjalf did not unveil the places between realms and not even Heimdal knew what lay without the branches of the tree.

And Odin could not ask. He'd begun these audiences that he might learn Loki's hand in it. Directly or otherwise. But if there was a way out from the question that betrayed nothing, Loki would take it. He had grown cunning in his years, evasive, and now he kept both his knowledge and his heart nearer than even Odin might see them.

"All this," Odin played a hand, "because Loki desired a throne."

"It is my birthright!" the boy flashed, a nerve struck.

"Your birthright," Odin snapped back, "was to die, as a child, cast out on a frozen rock. If I had not saved you," he stilled, sitting back in his throne, "you would not be here now, to hate me."

He recalled the many times he'd shouted at Loki when he had been a child. He remembered the quick flash of fear that would fly across the child's face and leave it blank or streaked with sudden tears.

Odin had prayed that whatever it was that had driven Loki to his actions on Midgard, it had been more than a grappling for power. He had had reason to hope, in the first days, that that might be so. But Loki snuffed that hope further every day. And with a vehemence that gave Odin little space to do more than send him away again.

Loki looked at him with no trace of the mockery that had marked him during their every prior visit. "If I am for the axe," he pleaded, "then for mercy's sake, just swing it. I mean," he simpered, "it's not as though I don't love our little talks, it's just," the look was back, tugging at one corner of his mouth, "I don't love them."

Odin could not see if it was more than pride that held his son.

Odin had learned humility from a woman.

Thor had learned humility on Earth.

Loki had shut such path off for himself.

His banishment would have to be of a different kind.

"Frigga is the only reason you're still alive," Odin decided, watching Loki's face, gauging his reaction, "and you will never see her again."

Loki fell back a pace. He opened his mouth, but it took several long moments for him to find the words. He breathed unevenly and blinked back sudden tears.

His face as it had been in his childhood, blinking at the sudden pain of some chastisement, replaced the current image of the son that stood before Odin, just for a moment.

Then the AllFather laid that aside, judging the depth of the blow dealt.

So, for her, at least, Loki felt something other than the glib irreverence he'd displayed.

Odin gripped the Gungnir in his hand. "You will spend the rest of your days in the dungeon."

By then Loki had finally gained back his tongue, "And what of Thor?" he hissed. He was shifting the focus to his brother. "You'll let that witless oaf become king while I rot in chains?"

It was a deflection. His revocation of Frigga's visits had hit Loki nearly and he chose a topic that had raised Odin's ire in the past.

"Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done," he accepted Loki's bait. "He will bring order to the Nine Realms. And then," Odin sat back on his throne, "yes. He will be king."

He had to be.


End file.
